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CQESRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE DON QUIXOTE OF PSYCHIATRY 



The Medico-Historical Writings 

of Victor Robinson, ph.c, m.d. 



AN ESSAY ON HASHEESH 

An historical and pharmacological study of 
Cannabis Indica, including observations and 
experiments. Published, 1912. 

PATHFINDERS IN MEDICINE 

Biographic sketches of Galen, Aretseus, Paracelsus, 
Servetus, Vesalius, Pare, Scheele, Cavendish, 
Hunter, Jenner, Laennec, Simpson, Semmelweis, 
Schleiden and Schwann, Darwin. Published, 
1912. 

ESSAYS IN MEDICAL HISTORY 

Landmarks in Pharmacology, The Children's 
Plague, Autobiography of the Tubercle Bacillus, 
and several other medico-historical articles 
published in volumes xxii-xxiii of the 'Medical 
Review of Reviews,' which the author edited 
during 1916-17. 

THE DON QUIXOTE OF PSYCHIATRY 

A chapter in the history of American medicine, 
containing information not elsewhere available. 
Published, 1919. 

In Preparation 

HISTORY OF GONORRHEA 

From the earliest time to the present, based 
largely upon the original sources. 



THE DON QUIXOTE OF PSYCHIATRY 



By 

Victor Robinson 



NEW YORK 
HISTORICO-MEDICAL PRESS 

206 BROADWAY 
1919 



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c$ s 



Copyright, 1919, by 
Medical Review of Reviews 



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m 



Press of J. J. Little & Ives Co.. New York 

©CLA515668 



TO A. LEVINSON, 

CHICAGO 

Dear Doctor: 

In the year that Dr Clevenger was ap- 
pointed to the staff of the Michael Reese 
Hospital, you and I were born. The snows 
and saffrons of more than thirty years have 
passed since then, and Dr Clevenger no 
longer walks among the wards of the Michael 
Reese — but you do. I have often told you 
fragments of the tale of your predecessor; 
take now the finished story from 

Your friend, 

The Author. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I The Formative Years 11 

II At the Chicago Medical College . . 30 

III Medicine Under King Mike .... 59 

IV The Kankakee Affair 100 

V Dreaming and Drifting 123 

VI Books and Essays 143 

VII The Philadelphia Group 203 

VIII Friends in New York 254 

IX Letters from Spitzka .» 280 

X The Closing Years 317 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

S. V. Clevenger, portrait 28 

William E. Quine, portrait and autograph ... 36 

Robert L. Rea, portrait and autograph .... 38 

William H. Byford, portrait and autograph . . 42 

James S. Jewell, letter to J. J. Putnam .... 45 

Hosmer A. Johnson, portrait and autograph . . 46 

Nathan Smith Davis, portrait and autograph . . 52 

S. V. Clevenger, portrait 98 

S. V. Clevenger, portrait 98 

Medical Staff at Kankakee, autographs . . . . Ill 

Clevenger's Cottage at Kankakee 116 

Horatio C. Wood, letter to Clevenger 129 

Clevenger Book Typewriter 133 

Charles Hamilton Hughes, portrait .... 166 

John Eric Erichsen, letter to Clevenger .... 177 

William Francis Waugh, portrait and autograph . 184 

Joseph Leidy, portrait 212 

Edward D. Cope, portrait 234 

Joseph LeConte, portrait 234 

E. D. Cope, letter to Clevenger 239 

William Pepper, letter to Cope 243 

William Pepper, portrait 248 

Roswell Park, announcement 258 

7 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

William A. Hammond, letter to Clevenger . . . 262 

William A. Hammond, portrait and autograph . . 270 

Burt G. Wilder, card to Clevenger 274 

Edward C. Spitzka, portrait 284 

Burt G. Wilder, portrait 284 

E. C. Spitzes, letter to Clevenger 291 

S. V. Clevenger, portrait and autograph . . . 324 



THE DON QUIXOTE OF PSYCHIATRY 



THE DON QUIXOTE OF 
PSYCHIATRY 



THE FORMATIVE YEARS 

HAVE you ever heard of Dunning? That's 
the town, seven miles from Chicago's cen- 
ter, where the Insane Asylum of Cook County 
is located. Had you lived there in 1880, when 
Dunning was only a patch of prairie, with 
nothing but the asylum and some saloons to indi- 
cate that civilization had reached the spot, you 
would often have noticed a person walking along 
the road, holding in his hand a tightly-closed 
tin-bucket on which the sun glittered. He 
seemed to be a friendly sort of man, and ac- 
quaintances who passed him, called out, 'Hello, 
Doc' As he was not far from forty years of 
age, you might have supposed that he had been 
practising for some time, but your name is not 
Sherlock Holmes, for S. V. Clevenger was an 

M.D. of only one year's standing. 

11 



12 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

There had been too many cross-roads in his 
journey to enable him to reach his destination 
sooner. His adventures began with his birth, for 
altho springing from strictly American stock — 
in 1690 John Clevenger signed a petition to the 
king 'for better government of East Jersey,' 
and during the Revolution Captain Job Clev- 
enger of the Burlington Militia was killed by 
the British at Crosswicks, while his mother's fam- 
ily was related to bold John Hancock- — yet he 
himself drew the first breath of life beneath the 
bluer skies of Florence. 

His father had worked in Cincinnati as a 
stone-cutter — until the day that he chiseled a 
man's head in a rock and all the city recognized 
the editor of the Cincinnati Evening-Post. The 
stone-cutter had grown into a sculptor, and the 
workingman's quarry-yard became an artist's 
studio. He traveled to other cities, to see who 
would trade gold for marble. Memorable men 
sought this gifted boy: two presidents of the 
United States, William Henry Harrison and 
Martin Van Buren, and the best-known states- 
men of the day, Daniel Webster, Henry Clay 
and Edward Everett, were among his sitters. 
Old Judge Hopkinson who signed the Declara- 
tion of Independence, young Julia Ward the 



The Formative Years 13 

poetess, Washington Allston the painter, and 
John Eberle the physician who helped to found 
the Jefferson Medical College, were featured for 
futurity by his chisel. 

There came into his life the call of Italy, and 
with his family he sailed for the artist's Holy 
Land — and by the Arno, on the twenty-fourth 
of March, 1843, Shobal Vail Clevenger, Jr, 
came into the world. The sculptor toiled hard 
and learnt much, and when the time came for 
him to exhibit his handiwork, it was found he 
had not carved a worn-out Roman theme, but 
the first distinctive American figure done abroad 
— the Indian. But what has become of this In- 
dian no man knows; he seems to have disap- 
peared like the living members of his race. 

Only thirty years of age, his genius recognized, 
his fame increasing, full of plans, mapping out 
his work, the future beckoned brightly to the 
sculptor. But that same enemy which wrote 
# Finis to the poems of Keats, and hushed the 
music of Chopin, was already shaking the 
plaster from Clevenger's hand. Tuberculosis 
marked him, and the stricken youth prepared to 
return to America — to die at home. Whatever 
we are, wherever we are, when the final summons 
comes, we want to die at home. 



14 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

A ship passed Gibraltar with furled sails, for 
a passenger had died on the boat, and lay draped 
in the American flag. The captain read the 
burial service, and when he reached the words, 
'We consign his body to the deep,' a board was 
lifted, and the corpse of Clevenger slid into the 
waters of the Atlantic. He had a grave to which 
his widow could bring no flowers. Only Junior 
did not weep, for he was six months old, and 
did not understand that he had lost a brilliant 
father. 

When the widow arrived in New York, John 
Jacob Astor, the founder of Astoria, advised 
her in disposing of the statuary that had caused 
the vessel to dip below Plimsoll's mark. Henry 
Clay also called in reference to the bust that he 
had ordered, and when the tall orator bent over 
to shake hands with Shobal's little sister, she 
mistook him for a giant stepping out of one of 
her fairy-tales. Shobal himself stared at the 
man who claimed he would rather be right than 
president, but only said 'Boo,' — perhaps he 
didn't believe him, even then. Years later, the 
government used Clevenger's Webster for its 
fifteen-cent postage-stamp, and today his mar- 
bles are found in the Boston Athenaeum, in the 
Academy of Fine Arts at Philadelphia, and at 



The Formative Years 15 

the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York 
City. The builder was frail, and his body fed 
the fishes, but his work shall not perish. 

The Clevengers had relatives along the Mis- 
sissippi, and there they went. Matters were 
talked over, and it was decided that Mrs 
Clevenger should open a fashionable hotel — a 
high-class boarding house it really was. To re- 
main a widow when you are young, and have 
three children and an hotel on your hands, is 
not always convenient, especially if the hand- 
some star-boarder is importunate, and before long 
Mrs Clevenger became Mrs Thwing, and the 
three children — thru no merit of their own — ac- 
quired a step -father, while the hotel gained a new 
manager. 

The second husband showed marked ability in 
spending the first husband's money, but other- 
wise he was not talented. He was a Southern 
gentleman, and in those days Southern gentle- 
men did not work. Altogether, Mr Thwing 
failed to play an important role in the lives of 
the family, for not many years later he too was 
silenced by the Captain of the Men of Death, as 
John Bunyan quaintly called tuberculosis. 

So Shobal grew up in the West. It was not 
the West that Daniel Boone and Davy Crock- 



16 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

ett knew, for a changing land was growing out 
of the broadened trails, already treading on 
the trader's and the trapper's heel; yet it was 
far from the decorous West of the present, where 
Pullman berths are more plentiful than wig- 
wams; it was the West raw from the broad-ax, 
the strange territory where the express receipts 
of Wells & Fargo read: 'This company will not 
be responsible for the acts of God, Indians, or 
other public enemies of the government.' 

The boy never met God out w T est, but he saw 
the redskins, naked and hostile in the wild woods ; 
he looked upon the corpses of men swinging 
from lodge-poles, the words Vigilance Commit- 
tee pinned upon their last suit of clothes ; he felt 
the earth tremble beneath a herd of buffaloes 
that stretched for miles; he lived next door to 
people who had played their parts in the great 
Western drama: first a forest, then a pioneer, 
then a clearing, then a log-cabin, then a massa- 
cre, and when the hills no longer re-echoed the 
war-whoop, nothing — until the next settler's fam- 
ily stepped out of the prairie-schooner. 

Shobal Clevenger's earliest recollections 
date from an Indian trading-village which has 
since become St Louis. Small as it was, it sur- 
passed all its neighbors, and even boasted of 



The Formative Years 17 

traveling salesmen. One of these drummers had 
occasion to visit a town that was springing up 
along Lake Michigan, with the result that when 
he got back, he amused his friends by telling 
them, 'That dirty little mud-hole of Chicago ex- 
pects to equal our city some day.' Here we have 
evidence that even a traveling salesman's judg- 
ment may be at fault. 

Shobal next found himself on a farm in Ohio, 
where his big brother Albert took him rabbit- 
hunting, and allowed him to watch as he chopped 
down the trees, to the whistled tune of a popular 
song. 

They went to Alabama for a short time, soon 
coming to New Orleans. Here Shobal was 
sent to school, and found that the principal part 
of the curriculum consisted in chastisement. Yet 
mischievous as he was, his own hide never felt 
the rattan, for when a good-natured grin on his 
face caused him to be called forward to receive 
a licking, he jumped out of the window and never 
returned. 

To beat children was quite the thing in those 
days — it had Solomon's sanction. It is not on 
record that Solomon has revised his maxims, but 
it is evident that we have revised our opinion of 
Solomon. The constant whippings brutalized 



18 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

the youngsters, and certainly aroused sadistic 
instincts in the teachers. 

Yet the chief grief of Shobal's childhood was 
not due to a school-master — when punishment 
was imminent he graduated rapidly — but to his 
own mother. She had bought him his first pair 
of pants, and like a true youngster he had spoiled 
the precious garment by sitting on a wet lawn. 
'That settles it,' she remarked as she changed 
him back to frocks, 'you will have to wear petti- 
coats as long as you live.' He was an impres- 
sionable lad, and the picture of himself grown to 
tall manhood, with long legs imperfectly covered 
by short gowns, disturbed his sleep for several 
nights. 

The family liked New Orleans, but in 1853 
came the yellow fever. It proved to be an his- 
toric plague, and the stolid cry of strangers, 
'Bring out your dead, bring out your dead,' be- 
came as common as when Benjamin Bush 
waded thru the remains of stricken Philadelphia, 
stopping in amazement when he saw some one 
building a house for the living in the city of the 
dead. All the Clevengers were attacked, 
Albert worst of all. The remarkable physi- 
cian, Josiah Clark Nott, — who even in that 
day believed in the mosquito- theory of yellow- 



The Formative Years 19 

fever, but died before any one else believed it — 
treated the sufferers, and left special orders in 
regard to Albert. Nurses have disobeyed phy- 
sicians — with resulting benefit to the patients — 
but it was not thus in this case: as soon as Dr 
Nott's back was turned, the nurse did just what 
he told her not to do, and in a few hours there 
was one Clevenger less in the world. 

Shobal went back to St Louis, alone this 
time, as he was already twelve years old; first 
he worked as a clerk in his Uncle Yates' boat 
store, then another relative, John J. Roe, the 
merchant prince of St Louis, put him in the 
States Savings Institution as a messenger, and 
he was soon promoted to a collector ship. It was 
the largest bank in the west, there were no clear- 
ing houses then, and some days he collected over 
a million dollars in gold and silver, but he evened 
up matters by seeing little money since. It was 
often necessary to take trips down the river, and 
he remembered at least one of the cub pilots, as 
he happened to be Mark Twain. 

The California fever heated the young man's 
blood, but because of Indians on the war-path he 
was switched to Colorado and New Mexico. As 
indicative of the types that one was likely to meet 
in those days, let it be mentioned that at Pike's 



20 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

Peak he came across Pat Casey, a rich mine 
owner who could not sign his name, but who 
could pay $300 for a night's use of the bridal 
chamber in a New York hotel, sleeping alone in 
the gorgeous bed with his boots on. 

Shobal remained an inhabitant of St Louis 
until the lowering war-clouds broke into a red 
outpour. It became plain that Henry Clay's 
compromises had effected nothing; nor indeed 
was any concession possible with a people whose 
leading newspapers uttered sentiments such as 
these : 

'Free Society!' cried the Muscogee Herald of 
Alabama, 'we sicken at the name. What is it 
but a conglomeration of greasy workmen, filthy 
operatives, and small-flsted farmers? All the 
Northern States are devoid of society fitted for 
a well-bred gentleman. The prevailing class is 
that of mechanics struggling to be genteel, and 
small farmers who do their own drudgery and 
are not fit for association with a gentleman's 
body-servant.' 

'The establishment of the Confederacy,' ex- 
plained the Richmond Enquirer of Tennessee, 
'is a distinct reaction against the whole course of 
the mistaken civilization of the age. For liberty, 
equality, fraternity, we have deliberately substi- 



The Formative Years 21 

tuted slave labor; for voluntary labor, the Con- 
federacy has substituted involuntary labor; for 
paid labor, the Confederacy has substituted un- 
paid labor.' 

'There are slave races born to labor,' pro- 
claimed the Richmond Examiner, 'and master 
races born to govern and control the fruits of 
labor.' 

One portion of the community was to drudge 
and be common, and the other portion was to 
reap the benefits and be gentlemen — such was 
the creed of these high-toned highwaymen. The 
arch-southron, proprietor of negroes and father 
of mulattoes, — a gentleman of such exquisite 
sensibilities that he was quite capable of selling 
his own children into slavery — needed a national 
disaster to convince him that he was out of place 
in the nineteenth century. 

When the call for volunteers came, Shobal 
Clevenger, a splendid youth of nineteen, en- 
listed as a private in a regiment being raised in 
Kansas City. During the course of the war he 
was in the armies commanded by Grant, Fre- 
mont, Howard, the lamented McPherson, and 
Thomas. 

At Nashville, Tennessee, he joined the United 
States Engineer Corps, and was occupied in 



22 The Bon Quixote of Psychiatry 

building bridges and railroads. Here he met 
Miss Mariana Knapp, a graduate of the West- 
ern Female College of Oxford, Ohio; after that, 
whenever he marched off with the troops, and 
the regimental musicians played, 'The Girl I 
Left Behind Me,' Shobal had something to 
think about. Altho we find no date attached, 
we opine that it was around this time that he 
wrote the Invocation containing the lines : 

Help me, O muse, to sing her praise, 

Mark with me all her gentle ways ; 

Her sylphid form, her deep blue eye 

That purity of soul imply — 

Her easy, unassuming grace, 

Her modest, lovely, downcast face, etc. 

Private Clevenger joined Sherman when 
that doughty General started on his journey to 
the sea, but he was turned back by the order of 
Andrew Johnson, military governor of the 
state, who promoted him to a first lieutenantcy 
in the Tenth Tennessee Infantry, and placed 
him in charge of Sherman Barracks, with the 
additional privilege of raising a battalion of his 
own. So while Sherman was marching thru 
Georgia, Clevenger was inserting patriotic ad- 
vertisements in the newspapers, under the title, 



The Formative Years 23 

'To the Truly Loyal,' urging all able-bodied 
males to enlist under his new lieutenant's sword. 
Most participants in the Civil War have 
talked about it for the remainder of their lives — 
the veteran winning battles with his tongue and 
cane has been a familiar figure in American life 
since the sixties — but Clevenger rarely alluded 
to his martial exploits, altho his career in the 
army was honorable and hazardous. He per- 
formed his duty and volunteered for more, as 
may be seen by the characteristic note which he 
sent to the commander of the post at Johnson- 
ville : 

I have the honor to request the privilege of taking 15 
of my men out on a scout across the Tennessee. Hav- 
ing experience, and experienced men who know the coun- 
try thoroly, I might be enabled to do much service by 
being permitted to scout tomorrow. 

Hoping that my request will be granted, your ac- 
quiescence will find me at your headquarters tomorrow. 

Special order 1721, directing Lieutenant 
Clevenger to report with twenty-five men at 
Picket Post to escort a quarter-master train 
twelve miles out, was signed by Andrew John- 
son — and it certainly looks like the chirography 
of a man who couldn't write until his wife taught 



24 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

him. In the remarks on the muster-out roll 
that lies before us, it is stated that Clevenger 
served in four regiments and commanded one; 
that he was Captain by appointment, but was 
not mustered in; and that in December, 1864, for 
his services at the Battle of Nashville, he was 
appointed Brevet Lieutenant Colonel by An- 
drew Johnson — presidential approval pending. 
When the time for ratification arrived, Johnson 
himself was the man in the White House, but 
he was so occupied with the terrible Stanton 
that he forgot the Battle of Nashville and neg- 
lected to approve his own appointment. So 
Clevenger remained only a lieutenant. 

When the war was over, he became chief clerk 
in a claim agency, and helped to muster the boys 
in blue out of service, an occupation in which he 
earned considerable money. By this time Miss 
Knapp was his wife, and together they started 
for Montana — accompanied by the books that 
had been used at the Western Female College; 
Mrs Clevenger didn't need them any more, but 
Clevenger did: he wanted an education too. 

It took ninety days to reach Montana, but 
when they were settled, they became personages 
in the land : at White Tail Deer, Clevenger held 
the office of justice of the peace, and at Fort 



The Formative Tears 25 

Benton, Mrs Clevenger organized the first pub- 
lic school, while her husky mate was hotel keeper, 
probate judge, court commissioner, and revenue 
collector. Besides, he made meteorological ob- 
servations for the Smithsonian Institution, with 
rain-gauges furnished by Joseph Henry him- 
self. 

As a worker for Uncle Sam it was one of 
Clevenger's jobs to look after the illegal whisky 
that the white men were selling to the Indians — 
really mixtures of chemicals with tobacco juice, 
red pepper and fusel-oil in spirits of cologne — 
and he had the sport of emptying hundreds of 
such barrels into the Missouri river, tho some- 
times the trader would not give up the rot-gut 
whisky until he found a file of soldiers in un- 
comfortable propinquity. 

Nature is a harsh step -mother to the human 
race: if a man is syphilitic or has gallstones, his 
children are in danger of inheriting the disorder, 
but if he has any special talent, his offspring 
are not so liable to be infected with it. None of 
the sculptor's children showed any artistic in- 
clination, but Shobal was gifted in another 
direction: he had a bent toward scientific things. 
In spite of his official functions, the long silent 
winter-evenings at the isolated fur-post gave him 



26 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

leisure to cultivate himself. His wife was his 
teacher, until he went beyond her. He qualified 
as a civil engineer, and soon had a contract to 
survey the military reservation. 

Thruout all his surveys he carried with him 
the identical copy of Loomis' Trigonometry and 
Logarithms which his wife had used in the Ohio 
school, but he carried it across that sandy waste 
of New Mexico known as the Journey of Death, 
for all along the route were the bones of men, 
oxen, deer, buffaloes, wolves, dogs, horses, — 
animals that perished from want of water. On 
these surveys he learnt what it was to wander in 
a blizzard without food for days, and finally to 
cook a steak from a government-mule that was 
found frozen on the ground. He learnt what 
it was to go without drink, when the tongue 
hangs out, swollen, blackened, fissured, and a 
cracker turns to dry powder in the mouth, and 
then, delirious with joy, dash and roll, with 
clothing on, into a creek of water. Hunger and 
thirst; clouds of mosquitoes and whirlwinds of 
sand; storms that tore his tents to shreds, and 
dust that blinded the eyes; mountains and 
prairies; Indians and politicians: these obstacles 
did not prevent him from surveying endless miles 
in what was then unexplored Dakota Territory, 



The Formative Years 27 

now the states of North and South Dakota. 

He did more for Dakota: he built its first tele- 
graph, thus connecting isolated Yankton with 
the outside world. It meant much to the town, 
which now decided to consider itself the metropo- 
lis of the northwest. The mayor, the news- 
papers and the inhabitants turned out to wel- 
come the builder, a telegraph-ball was given in 
honor of the thread-like wire which could carry 
Yankton's messages over the far-stretching 
prairies into the busy haunts of men, and just 
to prove that everything was all right, Cleven- 
ger played a game of chess by telegraph with an 
operator in Chicago. 

But we must take things as they come on our 
planet, and a few months after this triumph, 
the Clevengers lost their daughter Bessie, a 
child of five, from scarlatina, and the world 
looked changed to them. But men must work, 
tho their children die, and as the Dakota 
Southern Railway was being erected, Clevenger 
secured the position of its chief engineer. 

As his engineering skill increased, his ambi- 
tions expanded, and he formed the project of 
building monuments of masonry along boundary 
lines and doing such creditable astronomical and 
geographical work that engineers from afar 



28 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

would come to study it. To accomplish this, he 
calculated, would take three years of labor and 
about thirty thousand dollars. To get such a 
contract it was necessary to visit headquarters. 
He had another reason for going — he was loaded 
with evidence against the Land and Indian De- 
partments in the West, and if the government 
agents could be prevented from robbing the In- 
dians of their annuities and swindling them to 
the starvation point, there would be no more out- 
breaks like the Minnesota Massacre. H. H.'s 
A Century of Dishonor — a white woman's in- 
dictment of white men — is America's bitter 
classic. 

So the day came when the western youth, 
tanned with the sun and winds of Dakota, 
walked thru the streets of the national capital. 
It was fortunate for Clevengeb, that he came to 
Washington. He learnt many things : he learnt 
that no one wanted to hear anything in favor of 
monuments of masonry, and that no one wanted 
to hear anything against government agents. 

Still he lingered, and at last the wheel of for- 
tune seemed to take a more favorable turn. A 
few Washingtonians approached him, and prom- 
ised to obtain the appropriation. Clevenger 
thanked them cordially. 'Provided,' they added, 




CLEVENGER 

During the Yankton Period 



The Formative Years 29 

'you give us a certain percentage, ahem.' This 
was followed by the gentle hint that he didn't 
have to do the work at all — it could easily be re- 
ported that Indians had destroyed it. Some one 
thought it time to take pity on his simplicity, 
and told him, 'Go home, and I'll give you a base 
line to measure, at which you can earn an engi- 
neer's salary, tho it will take a year or two before 
you can have it. If you stay in Washington, 
your political friends who claim to be pledged 
to your ideas, will rob you of your papers, put 
you in the wrong and sell out to the senators who 
even now are secretly laughing at you.' 

It was a sobered engineer who set his face 
westward again, determined to survey no more 
land for the government, resolved to follow a 
new calling — where politicians could not enter: 
Medicine. 



II 



AT THE CHICAGO MEDICAL 
COLLEGE 

AT this juncture, General Alfred J. Meyer, 
chief of the United States Weather Bu- 
reau, which was then in the signal service of the 
war department, requested Clevenger to take 
charge of the observatory at Fort Sully, Dakota, 
and he consented for the sake of a livelihood. 
His work consisted in telegraphing three times 
daily to Washington, the barometer and ther- 
mometer readings, minimum and maximum tem- 
peratures, nature and direction of clouds, hu- 
midity and wind force, translated into cipher. 

But it was medicine that filled his dream, and 
under the direction of the army surgeons he read 
the Vienna masters, Rokitansky, Skoda, and 
Hebra — but did not hear of Semmelweis. He 
studied also anatomy and chemistry — preparing 
for college. He sent East for a copy of 
Holden's Anatomy, and when it arrived, he and 
Dr Bergen, the post surgeon, pored over it with 
delight — but they needed a skeleton to compare 

30 



At the Chicago Medical College 31 

with the beautiful plates. No doubt they felt 
like killing the post commander — a snob who 
wasted honest men's time by demanding that 
they perpetually salute him and dress punctili- 
ously for parade. But deciding it would foe 
safer to obtain a ready-made frame-work of the 
human body, they planned to rob an Indian 
place of sepulture — across a ravine, on a high 
bluff, some miles from the fort. 

They prepared flour sacks, dark lanterns and 
revolvers — and waited for night; sliding down 
one hill and climbing another, they hurried along 
until they came to a Sioux village of teepees, 
where many dogs howled. Hiding until all was 
still, they crept on again, and readied the grave- 
yard. The bodies were not buried, but were in 
boxes hanging on poles. They tumbled these 
down, and after filling the flour sacks with bones, 
the adventurers returned to the fort without inci- 
dent. V 

Content but exhausted, Clevenger threw 
himself into bed with torn clothes and shoes 
bristling with prickly pear stickers, his body 
pierced all over with cactus spines. He slept. 
He awoke in full daylight to find the hospital 
steward bending over him with a grin that almost 
split his face. The steward was a little Yankee 




82 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

who spoke in so squeaky a voice that if heard 
on the stage it would be considered a caricature. 
'Were you and Dr Bergen poking around the 
Indian burying ground last night?' he queried. 

'Is that any of your damned business?' asked 
Cleyenger. 

'Not a bit,' he cried in delight, 'but you ought 
to listen to the racket down in the Indian village. 
The major sent down to find out what was eat- 
ing them, and they said the spirits of their dead 
friends were dancing on the hill last night. The 
major did some guessing on his own account and 
sent for Bergen who gave the secret away.' 

'Well,' answered Clevenger, 'I guess we can 
survive the major knowing that we are studying 
anatomy at this post.' 

'That's all right,' agreed the steward, 'but there 
is more to tell: that was a special grave-yard.' 

'What sort?' asked Clevenger, yawning. 
'Kings and queens, chiefs and chief esses?' 

'Worse than that: small-pox!' 

Suddenly Clevenger became interested in his 
surroundings, and with a leap was at his keys 
telegraphing for vaccine lymph — which came in 
a month. The small-pox, however, did not come 
at all — the Indians must have been hanging a 
long time — but Clevenger was again bitten by 



At the Chicago Medical College 33 

a political trick: Captain Howgate boodled so 
much of the signal service funds that the Fort 
Sully office was discontinued. 

Clevenger now sought employment from the 
owner of a fleet of steamboats, John H. 
Charles, the same who advanced the wire and 
expenses for his telegraph, and was one of the 
best friends he ever had. Under this good- 
hearted Commodore he worked as a steamboat 
clerk until he considered he had sufficient money 
to go to medical school. 

He had set his heart on Harvard, and was 
frank enough to inform the Secretary of his cir- 
cumstances: his family was increasing, his in- 
come was not. The Secretary was Reginald 
Heber Fitz, but in his reply of December, 1876, 
the investigator of the intrapleural lipomata of 
the mediastinum appears as a sensible economist. 
He explained to Mr Clevenger that even an 
unmarried student cannot live on less than $7 
a week, that the tuition fee was $200 a year, that 
outside work could be obtained only with ex- 
treme difficulty, and that such work was hardly 
feasible, as the college demanded the student's 
entire time. Good-bye, Harvard! 

The University of Michigan also was thought 
of, but he finally decided that the Chicago Med- 



34 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

ical College, now Northwestern University, 
would be his alma mater. This was not the old- 
est medical school in Illinois. In the early- 
thirties, when Daniel Brainard was studying 
medicine in Philadelphia, Chicago had a popula- 
tion of about one hundred — and all its mail was 
deposited in a dry-goods box. Yet the boom 
was on, and in the fall of 1835, when Dr Brain- 
ard rode into Chicago on his little Indian pony, 
he found a village of three thousand inhabitants. 
The mortar was already hardening in Chicago's 
first brick building — erected by Gurdon Sal- 
tonstall Hubbard and known as 'Hubbard's 
Folly.' But hogs still roamed thru the business 
section, and when it rained hard, the placard 
'No bottom' was posted near the chief streets, 
and an old hat floating with the warning, 'Keep 
away — I went down here,' was a ghastly re- 
minder that men and horses could drown in mud. 
But Daniel Brainard walked on the sunny 
side of the street, and applied to the legislature 
for permission to open a medical college. It 
was not a niggardly legislature: in 1837 it sent 
Brainard a charter for his school, and at the 
same time sent Chicago a charter that made it a 
city. So a medical college was founded in 
Chicago — on paper. Six years were to pass be- 



At the Chicago Medical College 35 

fore Brainard issued a four-page leaflet, full 
of typographical errors, announcing that Rush 
Medical College was open. The lectures were 
delivered in the office of Dr Brainard's wooden 
house, the course lasted sixteen weeks, the fac- 
ulty consisted of four men, and twenty-five stu- 
dents were present. 

What grows like Chicago? Fifteen years 
after this experiment, Rush was a flourishing in- 
stitution, with hospital facilities and famous pro- 
fessors on its staff. Brainard himself could not 
keep pace with some of the teachers. They de- 
manded that the two years of instruction which 
the college was now giving, be lengthened to 
three, and that the course be graded. Brainard 
refused to accede to these innovations; the man 
who had founded the first medical school in 
Chicago was fighting against improved medical 
education ; it is sad when the pioneer becomes the 
reactionary. 

But Daniel Brainard's day had passed: he 
who cannot keep step with the world's progress 
is left behind. The most talented instructors on 
the faculty severed their connexions with Rush, 
and taking with them the clinical service of 
Mercy Hospital, the rebels established in 1859 
the rival institution known as the Chicago Med- 



36 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

ical College, and here it was that a bearded Da- 
kotian matriculated eighteen years later. 

So a new life dawned for Clevenger, bring- 
ing with it new pleasures and new troubles — to 
struggle across the arid wastes of Gray's 
Anatomy, to scale its mountains of technicalities, 
to flounder in its swamps of details, to be lost 
by lamp-light in its jungle of terms, was per- 
haps as difficult as surveying a waterless prairie. 
But he was in no danger of flunking. He had 
read the Vienna Triumvirate, and the army sur- 
geons had taught him anatomy and chemistry. 
As for materia medica, he knew it by rote ; he had 
made the mistake of thinking it was necessary 
to know the entire Pharmacopeia before matricu- 
lating, and with his usual enthusiasm and ability 
he practically memorized the volume from cover 
to cover; it is doubtful if there was another stu- 
dent in the country who knew the Fifth Decen- 
nial Revision of the U. S. P. as well as 
Clevenger. 

At least one member of the faculty was about 
ten years younger than himself — Roswell 
Park, the demonstrator of anatomy. 

William E. Quine, who taught materia 
medica and general therapeutics, was not nearly 
as venerable as he has since become, but that 




%*• ¥. =2 



ante 



At the Chicago Medical College 37 

he was not too young is evident from the tribute 
which Clevenger hastily scribbled upon the 
blackboard while the class was waiting — not too 
impatiently — for the professor's appearance: 

Sound the stage horn, ring the cow bell, 
That the waiting world may know; 
Publish it thruout our borders, 
Even unto Mexico. 

Seize your pen, Oh dreaming poet! 
And in numbers smooth as may be, 
Waft the j oy ful tidings round us : 
Billy Quine has got a baby. 

Robert Laughlin Rea, who climbed from 
the plow to a professor's chair, was the teacher 
of anatomy. It is something of a coincidence 
that he had previously taught at the school where 
Mariana Knapp was a student. We may here 
relate the tale of the flower of the Oxford Semi- 
nary: among Rea's pupils was a Southern girl, 
endowed with intellect and unusual beauty. 
Her charms brought most of the young sparks 
of the town to her feet, and before her tuition 
was concluded, she was betrothed to one of these 
gentlemen. But a story that leaked out of the 
South, cut the thread of her trousseau. Her 
lover discovered that she was not a white woman, 



38 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

but an octoroon — and he promptly disowned her. 
The maid was in despair, and it became neces- 
sary for her father to visit her. Nature is fre- 
quently unfair; at the very moment when the 
father required all his resources to comfort his 
lovely but distressed child, he fell a victim to 
disease. Dr Rea attended him with devotion, 
but the cholera added another corpse to its mil- 
lions of victims. The physician, who was ap- 
pointed executor of the will, conveyed to its 
Southern home the body that he could not save; 
then secretly and successfully, tho at consider- 
able personal risk, he brought back with him his 
pupil's two sisters, as it was not safe for these 
young women to remain in that section of the 
great republic where a bit of extra pigment was 
made an excuse for slavery. The villain in The 
Octoroon was once well-known in American 
melodrama; but certainly Dr Rea played a 
hero's part in a real racial tragedy. 

Rea was regarded by many of his colleagues 
as the greatest anatomist that Chicago had pro- 
duced, but he was not a research worker. He 
seems to have been a master of his subject, altho 
he did not specialize in anatomy — he owned busi- 
ness blocks on Monroe Street. We understand 
Rea was the first to point out that Rembrandt's 



At the Chicago Medical College 39 

Anatomy at the Hague, where Nicholas van 
Tulpius demonstrates a dissection to a guild of 
Amsterdam surgeons, contains the mistake of 
representing the flexor sublimis digitorum as 
originating from the outer instead of the inner 
side of the arm. 

While Rea divided his affections equally be- 
tween money and medicine, Ralph N. Isham 
let the scales tip low to the side of cash. He 
went thru college at the expense of a medical 
friend, and refused to return the loan until the 
exasperated doctor drew a revolver upon him. 
Isham 's greed was such that he did not interfere 
when his own father was sent to the poor-house. 
Isham married an albino — she had no color in 
her iris, but she had green and yellow at the 
bank. These hateful qualities did not prevent 
Dr Isham from being an accomplished surgeon 
and an entertaining teacher. Nature often puts 
talents into the wrong hands. Railroads need 
men with hearts of steel, and Ralph N. Isham 
was chief surgeon of the C. & N. W. R. R. In 
swearing to anything that would aid the road 
lawyers against injured cases, he proved himself 
unscrupulous. 

But Clevenger's pet aversion on the faculty 
was John H. Hollister, the secretary of the 



40 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

school, and professor of pathology. Hollister 
was undoubtedly one of the most religious physi- 
cians in Chicago: even in ordinary conversation 
he would fold his hands prayerfully and roll the 
whites of his eyes heavenward; if patients were 
willing, he would kneel at their bedside and pray 
for them, and from Sunday-school pulpits he 
would relate how he and God cured the sick — 
tho it was common knowledge among his con- 
freres that he would desert critical cases at crit- 
ical times. His love of Christ was surpassed 
only by his love of Coin. He was a poor pathol- 
ogist — his duties to the Lord left him no leisure 
to enter his laboratory. He was so occupied 
with studying Isaiah, he had no opportunity to 
read Rokitansky. As a lecturer he was inco- 
herent, 'usually beginning with the therapeusis 
of the aurora borealis and winding up with spec- 
ulations upon the climatology of hades.' It was 
said that if Hollister should be examined by a 
state board for qualification as a practitioner, his 
rating would be as follows: anatomy, 0; chem- 
istry, ; materia medica, ; medicine, ; surgery, 
0; piety, 105. 

A man of an entirely different stamp was 
Edmund Andrews, the professor of surgery, 
Wholesome, kindly, talented, he was the 



At the Chicago Medical College 41 

Rabelais of the faculty in his love of humor — 
altho an active supporter of the Presbyterian 
Church — and his laugh was infectious. Many 
a college quiz and clinic were enlivened by his 
gayness. 'Mr Hayes,' he asked, 'what would 
you do in case of post-partum hemorrhage?' 
'I would tie the post-partum artery,' bluffed the 
student. When old Andrews heard that, he 
stood on one leg and laughed, and when he got 
tired, he stood on the other leg and laughed — 
and all the boys laughed with him. 

Andrews rose from a farm-hand to the leader- 
ship of the surgical profession in the mid-west. 
American medicine can tell of many lads who 
were once forced to cut grass, but later gained 
permission to place their knives in human flesh. 
Andrews began the study of medicine under 
Zina Pitcher — a name that is heard no more, 
but there was a day when fossils and plants were 
named after Zina Pitcher, and he was elected 
president of the American Medical Association. 
Pitcher had been a surgeon in the war of 1812, 
and his pupil rendered similar service in the war 
of the sixties. Later, Andrews organized state 
societies, scientific academies, journals and medi- 
cal colleges. He wrote much, but better even 
than his text-book was his warm nature, which 



42 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

shone thru every pore of his benevolent face, with 
its halo of snow-white beard. 

William Heath Byford — a mechanic's son 
and tailor's apprentice — was one of the original 
seceders from Rush, and occupied the chair of 
gynecology. He was also a founder of the 
Women's Medical College, and he lectured there 
for years, as he was a most enthusiastic advocate 
of medical education for women. 

The history of medicine is strewn with blun- 
ders, but they cluster thickest on the gynecologic 
branch. Time can never cleanse the dark pages 
that tell the story of puerperal fever. When we 
were a bit younger, every hospital collected 
bushels of ovaries that should have been left in 
the pelvic cavity. In Byfokd's day, lacerated 
cervices with everted mucous surfaces were mis- 
taken for ulcers, and accordingly cauterized. 
But Marion Sims' assistant, Thomas Addis 
Emmet,, sewed them up — trachelorrhaphy — be- 
coming famous, while Byford publicly acknowl- 
edged that he had committed thousands of these 
errors. He likewise told of taking a country 
doctor's diagnosis of cystic tumor ; so Byford cut 
into the abdomen, and instead of a cystic tumor 
he beheld a gravid uterus — but that's an old 
story. 




/fa ^ &yf*^ 



^- 



At the Chicago Medical College 43 

No man advertises his mistakes, unless he has 
virtues to match. Byford could afford to point 
out his own shortcomings, because before Law- 
son Tait he advocated laparotomy for ruptured 
extra-uterine pregnancy; he championed the 
slippery elm tent, and was among the earliest to 
employ ergot for expulsion of uterine fibroids; 
he observed that pelvic abscesses may become 
encysted and undergo alteration without being 
discharged, and his name is associated with the 
innovation of stitching the open sac to the ab- 
dominal wound after enucleation of cysts of the 
broad ligament. His text-books, a Treatise on 
the Theory and Practice of Obstetrics, and the 
Medical and Surgical Treatment of Women, 
were standard in their time. For years, Byford 
was one of the most familiar figures in the gyne- 
cologic and obstetric circles of the city, and all 
agreed that his reputation was honestly acquired 
and well-deserved. 

Obstetrics at the college was taught by that 
upright man, E. O. F. Holer — Byford's pupil 
— who unfortunately suffered constantly and 
terribly from organic headaches, but lectured 
splendidly and kept near the head of his profes- 
sion. 

Henry Gradle was the physiologist, and an 



44 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

excellent one; he was noted for his scientific and 
literary education. 

Samuel J. Jones was the ophthalmologist 
and otologist. He was an old naval surgeon, 
pedantic, pompous, a trifle antiquated, and jeal- 
ous of the younger generation which was making 
inroads into his specialty. 

James Stewart Jew t ell, tall and thin, with 
impressive and courtly manners, was a member 
of the first graduating class of the Chicago Med- 
ical College, and his first connexion with the fac- 
ulty was in the department of anatomy. Seven 
years later he resigned his professorship, his 
reason being that in order to become a better 
teacher in the Sabbath schools he found it neces- 
sary to visit the Holy Land to study biblical his- 
tory at its source. Upon his return in 1871 — 
disappointed in the backwardness of Palestine — 
he decided to specialize in nervous and mental 
diseases, and. was at once appointed to this chair 
in the college. In 1874 he established the Jour- 
nal of Nervous and Mental Disease, and under 
his editorship it was the foremost journal of its 
kind in America, and compared favorably with 
any similar periodical published in Europe. 
Jewell suffered from intestinal tuberculosis, 
but was a hard and efficient worker. He pos- 






At the Chicago Medical College 45 



;0 East Monroe 








^~^- 







^-^h^> 



LETTER FROM J. S. JEWELL 



46 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

sessed the best neurological library in the West. 
Hammond's Treatise on Insanity was dedicated 
to Jewell, 'whose learning has always com- 
manded my heartiest admiration, and whose 
friendship is one of the greatest pleasures of my 
life.' Jewell was indeed a worthy man, his 
chief fault being that he wrote his correspon- 
dence on fancy note-paper and mailed it in cute 
little envelopes, so that if you received one of his 
missives in the presence of company, they were 
likely to wink and ask, 'What's her name?' 

The learned , Hosmer Allen Johnson, the 
professor of medicine, was probably the best 
throat and chest doctor in the West at that time 
tho he himself was a life-long victim of bronchial 
trouble. He was a fine teacher, an admirable 
character, an old-fashioned scholar, a credit to 
the profession. Like Andrews and Byford and 
Davis, he came from Rush at the time of the 
schism. 

Then there were H. P. Merriman, the gen- 
tlemanly and conscientious lecturer on medical 
jurisprudence and hygiene; Marcus P. Hat- 
field, the professor of chemistry and toxicology; 
and Lester Curtis, the able histologist and 
teacher. 

But towering above all, and eclipsing all, was 



At the Chicago Medical College 47 

the eminent dean of the faculty, Nathan Smith 
Davis. No medical event in Chicago was com- 
plete without his participation. He was not 
named — as some have supposed — after Nathan 
Smith, the medical Hercules who founded 
Dartmouth Medical College, and for a dozen 
years constituted its entire Faculty, teaching 
every subject himself. Nathan Smith Davis, 
the son of Dow and Abagail Davis, was born in 
1817, in a log-cabin, barefoot, and stayed that 
way for several years. He grew up an untu- 
tored farm-boy in an unsettled district. One 
day, Dow Davis, standing in the fields, saw him 
trying to drive a plow and oxen with one hand, 
and holding a book in the other. Dow Davis 
was not as erudite as Joseph Leidy, but he em- 
phatically knew that decent plowing requires 
all the hands a man has. Accordingly he de- 
cided that since his sixteen-year-old son was more 
interested in cultivating his mind than the 
ground, there was nothing to do but send him to 
Cazenovia Academy. 

At seventeen he began to study medicine 
under the preceptorship of Daniel Clark, and 
soon entered college. Davis later achieved the 
distinction of having a biographer, who says he 
'feels perfectly safe in hazarding the assertion 



48 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

that the student by the name of Davis never 
was passed up, never smoked cigarettes, never 
came home at night when he was unable to find 
the keyhole, never fell in love with the college 
widow, and never indulged in any of the rowdy- 
ish freaks which have always accentuated and 
frequently disgraced student life.' In 1837, 
while still a minor, Davis graduated from the 
College of Physicians and Surgeons of Western 
New York; the school has long been silent, but 
in those days it harbored a teacher like Theo- 
doric Romeyn Beck, the greatest American 
name in medical jurisprudence. More than 
ninety years have gone by since his Elements of 
Medical Jurisprudence appeared, but like 
James Parkinson's description of paralysis 
agitans, it remains unsurpassed. 

Immediately after obtaining his diploma, Dr 
Davis settled in Vienna — Vienna, Oneida Coun- 
ty, State of New York, not the other Vienna. 
Nathan Smith Davis was too much of an 
American to waste any time abroad. We have 
been told that the foreign Vienna is the gayer 
of the two, but the young doctor did not find it 
dull where he was, for there was a girl in town 
named Anna Parker — who was not a college 
widow — and it may be maintained that a youth 



At the Chicago Medical College 49 

who woos a maid in Vienna, Oneida County, 
State of New York, is less lonesome than a youth 
who doesn't know an enchantress in the real Vi- 
enna. They were married, and remained in that 
civil state for over sixty-six years. 

Davis grew too big for the place, and came to 
New York City in 1847. The following year 
he delivered a course of lectures on Medical 
Jurisprudence, his favorite subject ever since he 
heard Theodoric Romeyn Beck. He probably 
expected to remain here for some years at least, 
but John Evans, professor of obstetrics at Rush 
Medical College, was in the East at this time, 
and invited Davis to occupy the vacant chair of 
physiology and pathology. Thus, in 1849, when 
the college was six years old, Davis became a 
westerner in order to join Chicago's earliest 
medical institution. Ten years later he was one 
of those who spoke to Brain ard of increased in- 
struction, periodic examinations and entrance re- 
quirements — tho he had none himself — and when 
Daniel Brainard said, 'Not necessary,' Davis 
was one of those who walked out of Rush, and in 
a short time he was delivering the introductory 
lecture at the new Chicago Medical College. 

It was as dean of this institution — the first in 
this country which demanded three years of 



50 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

graded instruction — that Davis became the most 
celebrated medical man in Chicago, unless he 
was such already. He founded societies and 
hospitals, and by his successful efforts to organ- 
ize a national medical association he earned that 
badge of fame — a sobriquet. Just as Benja- 
min Rush is known as the American Hip- 
pocrates, and John Morgan as the Father of 
American Medical Education, and Philip Syng 
Physick as the Father of American Surgery, 
and James Thacher as the Father of American 
Medical Biography, and Benjamin Water- 
house as the Jenner of America, so Nathan 
Smith Davis is known as the Father of the 
American Medical Association; he is the only 
man who was twice its president. Davis was a 
powerful speaker and a writer of ability. 
Among his numerous works are the History of 
Medical Education and Institutions in the 
United States, and History of the American 
Medical Association. He was the first editor of 
the Journal of the American Medical Associa- 
tion, and had edited seven other periodicals. 

He made no contributions of importance to 
the science of medicine, but impressed himself 
upon his profession and generation by his force- 
ful personality. He was always 'a character.' 



At the Chicago Medical College 51 

In spite of the encomiums which have been heaped 
upon his virtues, and much of which he undoubt- 
edly deserved, it is a matter of congratulation 
that his type is passing away. Agassiz may 
have been a fanatical opponent of Darwinism, 
but he remained a pioneer in ichthyology; Aus- 
tin Flint was certainly an obscurantist in re- 
ligion, but he was open to new ideas in physical 
diagnosis ; Marion Sims may have been undemo- 
cratic in his penchant for royal glitter, but he 
was always a pathfinder in operative gynecology. 
But Nathan Smith Davis was an all-around 
bigot — a bigot in religion, a bigot in politics, a 
bigot in science. After helping to reform the 
medical curriculum in 1859, he closed the door 
of his mind and would no more think of allowing 
a new idea to enter than of changing his Andrew 
Jackson face and swallow-tailed coat. 

For years he opposed everything new in medi- 
cine. Seeing the hypodermic syringe used in 
Europe, George T. Elliott and Fordyce 
Barker introduced it into America, but Davis 
met it with anathemas. During the civil war 
John Shaw Billings used a clinical thermom- 
eter, and later the elder Seguin wrote books 
about the instrument, but Davis thundered 
against the innovation. 'Why do I need a ther- 



52 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

mometer?' he cried. 'Can't I tell a fever with 
my hand?' Davis was fond of lecturing on ty- 
phoid fever, and would give a long list of etio- 
logical factors which he regarded as conclusive. 
'And yet,' he added in ineffable scorn to the class 
of 1879, 'some day some Dutchman will come 
along and tell us that typhoid is caused by a 
bug!' And the very next year a 'Dutchman,' 
named Carl Eberth, did come along and prove 
that typhoid is caused only by a 'bug,' and today 
every dispensary-patient knows it. 

Not a hint of these characteristics is to be 
found in the biography of Davis or in any sketch 
that we have seen; apparently Dr Danforth 
thought it more important to open his tenth 
chapter with the solemn statement, 'It is an his- 
toric fact which I have upon the excellent au- 
thority of Mrs Davis herself that Dr Davis 
never tasted an alcoholic beverage in all his life.' 
At a testimonial banquet given in honor of 
Davis, Robert H. Babcock said, 'As an alum- 
nus of the old Chicago Medical College, I call 
on you to rise, and in that beverage which Dr 
Davis loves and has continued to pledge his life, 
drink to his health.' 'Pure water,' exclaimed 
Davis, 'nature's universal aseptic; it disorders 
no man's brain; it fills no asylums or prisons; it 




V. 9 



O^^y^f 



At the Chicago Medical College 53 

begets no anarchy, but it sparkles in the dew- 
drop, it glows in the peaceful rainbow, and flows 
in the river of life close by the throne of God. 
Let us take it, not only as guests here, but for 
the whole profession of America.' Let us also, 
if we feel convinced that the water contains no 
typhoid bacilli, drink to the memory of the sturdy 
old Doctor who meant well. Spiritus frumenti 
and spiritus vini gallici have been denied a place 
in the latest edition of our Pharmacopeia: we 
wish there were also a way of expelling narrow- 
mindedness from science. 

So on the whole it was a worthy and compe- 
tent teaching-staff, comparing favorably with 
any that could be found in the United States. 
Clevenger was glad to breathe the atmosphere 
of a temple of knowledge. He fervently hoped 
that never again would his path in life cut across 
a political trail — for within the sanctuary of sci- 
ence what boodler dare intrude? The Hon. 
Michael McDonald, Cook County's boss, 
under whose foot Chicago bent; King Mike in 
truth, no man receiving any city job without his 
approval, no man being discharged without his 
consent, ruling the mayor, dictating to judges, 
controlling the police, selling the streets to rail- 



54 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

ways, collecting and disbursing the taxes and 
revenues — even he could have no jurisdiction 
over a disciple of Hippocrates. Clevenger 
was now among scholars and gentlemen: he had 
looked his last upon the grafter's face. 

The fourth of March, 1879, was the great day 
which crowned the ambitions of years — gradua- 
tion. The exercises were held at Plymouth 
Church on Michigan Avenue. The dean and 
members of the faculty sat on the platform — 
which was further decorated with banners and 
flowers and ladies. A large concourse had been 
invited and looked with interest at the ex-stu- 
dents. But it is to be feared that the new doc- 
tors were not over-attentive to the clergyman's 
invocation or to the dean's opening address. 
Even on solemn occasions boys are not inclined 
to listen to the advice of old men. 

Indeed, only the previous year the seniors 
went so far as to print a circular of their own — 
outside of the official program. The Faculty 
heard of the affair, and on graduation night 
every boy was searched, but nothing was found 
— of course not, since some friendly girls smug- 
gled the circulars in under their shawls. And 
while the minister was calling down the divine 



At the Chicago Medical College 55 

blessing upon the assembly, these leaflets were 
distributed, and it is surprising that Dean Davis 
escaped a fit of apoplexy, for seldom has Gut- 
tenberg's invention issued so scandalous a 
screed. On the first page, in large letters, was 
the announcement: 'Another Batch of Sawbones 
to Swell the Already Hyperemic Ranks of the 
Disease Accelerators.' Under the heading, 
'Bill of Fare,' were these items: 

Music — Pity the First Patient. 

Prayer — Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep. 

Music — Why Don't the Baby Come? 

(Intermission to allow the ushers to sprinkle chloride 
of lime over the feet of the graduates.) 

Grand Entre — The saloon keeper and laundryman 
with due bills. Panic among the students. 

Undress — Class Picture as an Anthelmintic. 

Valedictory. — Vermiform Appendix as a Switch. 

Music — It is Finished. 

On the second and succeeding pages, under 
the caption of 'Chancres,' various classmates 
were characterized; we select, from the original 
circular, some of the more reserved: 

G. B. Abbott: He wanted to be Valedictorian, and 
by voting for himself twice succeeded in getting three 
votes, thus showing his popularity with the class. 



56 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

E. Moore: As friends, we advise you to proffer 
your services to a bird store on Clark street, where a 
young man is wanted to chew crumbs for sick canaries. 

J. W. Dall : This cross between a half-breed and an 
anthropoid ape will make a first class abortionist, as 
that sickly smile of his would give a parturient woman 
convulsions. 

P. M. Woodworth: The appearance of this lean, 
lank, lantern- j awed limb of laziness is so suggestive 
that he had better resolve himself into an agent for a 
tombstone factory. 

W. R. Speaker: He cannot tell the difference be- 
tween the Eustachian and Fallopian tubes, altho he 
has devoted the last three years to calico dresses and 
petticoats. 

N. J. Neilson, alias Charlie Ross: Carry the news 
to his paternal ancestors that Charlie is alive, and 
today graduates at the Chicago Medical College. Ru- 
mors afloat that he was preserved in alcohol. Bar- 
num has telegraphed to his agent to secure him at any 
price. Charlie has consented, and will travel as 
Barnum's What is it. 

Personal: An embryotic physician, rather tall (6 ft. 
6), not handsome, sore eyes, but rich (as Job's tur- 
key), wishes to correspond with a lady of color, on 
Biler avenue. Address Dr Hastings or Buck, C M. C 

S. Mac Wiley: The valedictorian will disembowel 
himself before the august assembly. For profundity 



At the Chicago Medical College 57 

of thought and prolixity of expression he is par ex- 
cellence. He is an oratorical flower by the wayside. 
Gaze upon the prodigy, the wind-bag of nothingness. 

Just to prove that youthful audacity has no 
limits, the conspirators capped their impudence 
by announcing that the leaflet was printed by 
the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease. 
Poor Professor Jewell! 

If we could follow Clevenger's classmates 
out into the world, no doubt we would find that 
some became rich in practice, and others won- 
dered why luck was against them; that most of 
them married, and that a few remained deaf to 
the harmony of wedding-bells — yet all these 
things we merely surmise from our general 
knowledge of the human race; we really possess 
no authoritative information, for oblivion has 
covered the tracks of the class of 1879, and we 
must bid these boys farewell. 

Only Clevenger has come across our horizon, 
and we have already seen him carrying the tin- 
can from Dunning to his home several miles 
away. If we wonder as to its contents, our 
curiosity will soon be appeased, for he has now 
reached his room and approached his laboratory- 
desk; he takes off the pail's cover, carefully turns 
the pail over, and out rolls the brain of a lunatic. 



58 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

Ever since his graduation he had been engaged 
in neuro-pathological studies, performing autop- 
sies at the asylum, and bringing the brains to 
his room for detailed investigation. 



Ill 

MEDICINE UNDER KING MIKE 

ABOUT this time there was a proposition to 
appoint a special pathologist to the asylum, 
and what more logical candidate was there than 
Dr Shobal Vail Clevenger? He was already 
doing the work — privately; now let him do it — 
officially. Some of the most prominent physi- 
cians in Chicago — Dean Davis and Professor 
Rea among them — wrote letters urging that he 
be appointed. The superintendent of the 
asylum, Dr J. C. Spray, was favorably disposed 
towards him and one day proposed, 'Come along 
with me and see if you can pass muster.' 

To Clevenger's astonishment he brought him 
into a drinking-saloon on Clark street; the pro- 
prietor, an ordinary-looking fellow, was leaning 
on the customer's side of the long counter. 
Spray went over to him and Clevenger heard 
him whisper, 'This is the doctor I was telling 
you about.' At these words the saloon-keeper 
raised himself, looked at Clevenger for a mo- 

59 



60 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

ment, nodded quietly, and put out one finger for 
him to shake. 'I congratulate you,' smiled 
Spray to Clevenger. 

It seemed like a joke, yet they were in a seri- 
ous place: on the first floor were the wines and 
liquors, on the second floor were the roulette 
wheels and faro layouts, while the third seemed 
limited to whoredom — yet that den was the true 
City Hall of Chicago, and Clevenger had 
touched the hand of royalty. It was King Mike 
whose nod had made him Special Pathologist to 
the Cook County Insane Asylum; had Mike 
turned away from him, all the recommendations 
of all the physicians in Chicago would have 
availed him nothing. 

It smote the conscience of Clevenger to ac- 
cept a position from Michael McDonald — yet 
it was his heart's desire. He found excuses for 
himself; he looked at John Campbell Spray; 
he too was a medical man and an alumnus of the 
same school, and still he remained superintendent 
of the asylum for years with apparently no 
trouble. 

No sooner did Clevenger enter the asylum as 
pathologist than all doubt vanished. The mate- 
rials for original study were so vast, every one 
of the seven hundred patients presented so many 



Medicine Under King Mike 61 

interesting problems, that his contentment was 
supreme. He grudged every moment he had to 
waste on eating, sleeping, shaving — his wife had 
her troubles. He was surprised to find that no 
records of cases had been kept, so he secured 
large blankbooks and wrote up the histories from 
all available data. He was forty years of age, 
and to the strength of a man he added the en- 
thusiasm of a youth. Day and night he was on 
the go — diagnosing new cases, re-examining old 
ones, making post-mortems, cutting with his 
microtome, looking thru his microscope, prepar- 
ing reports for the press — he filled scientific 
periodicals with his contributions. 

Clevenger became known as a man worth 
watching, and when the time came to elect a new 
superintendent, he was asked to be a candidate. 
Unwilling, however, to spend time in administra- 
tive duties, he suggested for this position Dr 
James George Kiernan, who was elected. An- 
other change was made by the Commissioners. 
Dr Spray had been given entire control of the 
institution, but Dr Kiernan's authority was 
divided, for he was the medical superintendent 
only, while Mr Harry Varnell, a handsome 
fellow, was appointed warden, and took charge 
of the domestic and financial management. 



62 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

Clevenger was glad that Kiernan had super- 
seded Spray. For Spray proved to be one of 
those doctors who like to be considered ethical by 
their confreres, but like still more to eat the po- 
litical pie. Altho descended from Quaker par- 
ents, he seemed to have borrowed his manners 
from Mike McDonald's gang, for he was con- 
stantly threatening to whip and shoot people, 
and on the slightest provocation pulled out his 
revolver. Moreover he was as ignorant as medi- 
cal politicians usually are. Clevenger had come 
across a female patient who alternated her stu- 
porous state by somersaulting along the ward 
corridor; examining her further, he was inter- 
ested to find it was a case of katatonia, an uncom- 
mon disorder which had been described by Kahl- 
baum of Gorlitz. Immediately he told Spray 
of his discovery, and was met with the retort, 
'The damned Dutch are always doing things 
like that. I never heard of that, and I don't 
believe there is no such disease.' 

Then Kiernan was certainly more interested 
in reform than Spray. And as time went on 
Clevenger could not help but notice gross abuse. 
Even before Kiernan's appointment he was im- 
pressed with the fact that a lady physician was 
needed for the female department. Clevenger 



Medicine Under King Mike 63 

thought of two influential women whom he knew, 
Mrs Helen Shedd and her friend Mrs Ellen 
Henrotin, the wife of Mr Charles Henrotin, 
the first president of the Chicago Stock Ex- 
change, and known as 'the most decorated man 
in Chicago,' because of the numerous ribbons and 
medals he received from foreign governments 
where he had served as consul. Clevenger dis- 
cussed the subject with them, mentioning that 
a lady physician had never been appointed to a 
public asylum before and detailing what quali- 
fications she would have to possess. 'Such a 
woman as you described to me,' answered Mrs 
Shedd a few days later, 'would require almost 
an act of special creation, yet I fully understand 
you cannot abate one of the requisitions named, 
as they are vital to the success of the experiment.' 
Mrs Shedd and Mrs Henrotin managed to in- 
terest the Chicago Women's Club in the matter, 
with the result that on May 1, 1884, Dr Delia 
E. Howe moved into the asylum — and found 
plenty to do. 

Clevenger had not been long at Dunning be- 
fore he heard that the milk given to the patients 
in the dement wards frequently caused fatal epi- 
demics. Examining this milk he found it of low 
specific gravity and of acid reaction, but he found 



64 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

no suspicion of cream. Always curious, he de- 
termined to learn what became of the cream. 
One day he waited in the kitchen ice-house, and 
saw an attendant skim the cream from the milk- 
cans and carry it outside. Then he understood. 
For out in the yard were expensive kennels where 
King Mike kept his hunting-dogs — thorobred 
hounds, setters, pointers, retrievers. Clevengee, 
went back to his work of classifying patients. . . . 

There was little F. S., only six years old, the 
youngest patient in the asylum. He was a vic- 
tim of heredity, the usual etiology of insanity. 
Show us one hundred lunatics and we know what 
caused the mental disease in most of them: the 
parent. In the Cook County Insane Asylum 
were whole families, father or mother, and broth- 
ers and sisters, with occasional uncles and aunts 
and cousins, all insane together. Well might 
they curse the ancestry that brought them forth 
with a germ-plasm biologically defective, and 
bitterly may we condemn that system of society 
which encourages these unfortunates to sow their 
malformed seed. 

There was Joseph C, the Bohemian shoe- 
maker. He would be sitting or standing on the 
grounds, quiet and subdued, when without warn- 
ing such an uncontrollable rage would seize him 



Medicine Under King Mike 65 

that it required a force of strong attendants to 
hold him. Agile and crafty, he once bolted thru 
the door, and in spite of his straight- jacket 
ran up the ladder to the roof, and danced upon 
the chimney-tops. But he sold his freedom for 
a plug of tobacco; it was held out to him as a 
bait, and while attempting to take it with his 
teeth, his feet were pinioned, and like a wounded 
eagle he was returned to captivity. 

There was It. D., the Scotch bookkeeper. He 
had been an exhorter in the Methodist Church, 
and all was well until in a newspaper he noticed 
an advertisement about the errors of youth. As 
he was guilty of involuntary seminal ejaculations 
he knew the advertisement was personally aimed 
at him, and he further knew it was inserted by a 
Reverend Doctor Inman, of New York. To 
escape this malign advertisement he fled home, 
but it stared him in the face from his native vil- 
lage paper in Scotland. He sailed to Montreal, 
but found every one discussing Inman's adver- 
tisement. He shipped to the Indian archipelago, 
but the bluff old sea-captain insinuated that 
Scotchy was not as pure as he might be. He 
went to Cape Town, South Africa, and there he 
saw Inman's advertisement printed in Boerish 
Dutch — altho he didn't understand a word of 



66 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

Boerish Dutch. He hastened back to America, 
but noticed that the Chicago police had read In- 
man's advertisement, for they followed him 
wherever he went. Indeed, one policeman got on 
the same car that he did; his forbearance was at 
an end, and he struck the city guardian to his 
knees. He was promptly arrested, but after tell- 
ing his tale of persecution was not sent to prison 
but to the asylum. 

There was Emil Rein, the old German mu- 
sician. For years he was the leader of a musical 
society in Chicago, but alcohol jarred the mel- 
ody of his life. He became so abusive to his 
relatives that he was sent to Dunning. Here 
his behavior must have delighted the recording 
angel. It was his pleasure to teach music to the 
children and to play for the amusement of the 
patients. His amnesia was marked, and he 
could not remember the names of his pieces, but 
when some one started to hum or whistle the air, 
he played it with skilful fingers. At the asylum 
the children led him into the music-room, and 
after he had given them their lesson they led him 
back to his ward, for he was as docile as a lamb 
in a picture. His conduct was so irreproachable 
that he was sent home ; immediately he got drunk, 



Medicine Under King Mike 67 

seized an ax and smashed his piano, and tried to 
murder his family. 

There was Mary F., whose mother and sister 
were also confined to the asylum. She lay 
crouched upon the floor, with her beautiful black 
hair drawn across her face, listlessly passing her 
fingers thru the entangled coils, but beneath the 
sable meshes was a bloated visage without reason. 

There was Ingar R., a Scandinavian. She 
was useful in the ward, helping with the sewing 
and cleaning; she had regal manners, frowning 
severely upon all, but smiled complacently if pet- 
ted or flattered. A grand juror, a countryman, 
once visited the asylum and spoke Swedish to 
her; she answered all his questions so intelli- 
gently and otherwise spoke so rationally that he 
angrily demanded her instant discharge upon 
threat of bringing the matter into court. Ingar 
was told to go to her room to dress for town, 
while her bumptious compatriot waited for her. 
She reappeared with a gilt paper crown on her 
head, a robe of many colors with window tassels 
at the hem, and a broom-stick for a scepter. 
Pompously approaching the grand juror, she 
informed him she was the Queen of Tragedy and 
the Queen of Song, and a few other queens, and 
would fine him five dollars for daring to smoke 



68 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

in her presence — but his mouth was too agape 
to hold a cigar. 

There was young Mary Ryan, the Irish immi- 
grant. A happy and innocent girl, she had lived 
on her father's farm near Dublin. She married 
and came with her husband to America, and in 
the pitiless streets of Chicago he left her, friend- 
less, penniless, pregnant. She gave birth to a 
girl baby at a public place, and was transferred 
to the asylum. She raved incessantly. She 
never slept. Sedatives had no effect on her. 
She died exhausted. 

There was James C, the lawyer who was 
picked up in the streets of Chicago after the 
great fire. That terrifying conflagration which 
escaped man's mastery, the uncontrolled flames 
mocking the firemen for half a week, burning at 
Chicago's heart and leaving the city homeless, 
made many candidates for Dunning. The law- 
yer claimed he was trying a case in court when 
the judge turned into a boa-constrictor and the 
jury into monkeys; he had hallucinations of sight 
and hearing, yet retained much of his former 
legal ability, and one of the asylum attendants 
who had stolen a horse sneaked this lawyer out 
to the trial, and the insane attorney successfully 
defended his client. He was one of the show 



Medicine Under King Mike 69 

patients, but would not reply to queries until 
the visitors handed out some chews of tobacco. 
Once he turned inquisitor himself and asked, 
'You know that Susan B. Anthony is president 
of the United States?' 'Yes,' answered the 
caller, thinking it expedient to acquiesce in all 
that an insane person said. 'And you know that 
Andrew Jackson is vice-president, and that 
Harriet Beecher Stowe is secretary of war, 
and that we have captured England?' 'Yes.' 
'Well, you know a blamed sight more than I do, 
and you're the bigger fool of the two.' 

Another fire victim was a motherly soul, a 
pious respectable matron who claimed to be Mrs 
Lincoln, and consistently said her maiden name 
was Todd ; she would sew industriously until vis- 
itors annoyed her with questions, and then would 
turn on them with an unexpected torrent of 
filth and ribaldry. 

There was Samuel N., the English lithog- 
rapher, insane over spiritualism. He claimed 
he was arrested for writing an article in the Re- 
ligio-Philosophical Journal. He worked several 
years in the asylum drug-room, and jocularly re- 
marked that he 'never got further than pound- 
ing cinchona bark.' He could be trusted any- 
where on the grounds, as he was under the im- 



70 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

pression the spirits would not let him leave. He 
threatened to take away spiritualistic control 
from bastard mediums, but conferred medium- 
ship upon Clevenger. Every morning he 
adorned the trees with proclamations against 
ghosts, of which the following is a characteristic 
example: 'Little Church Round the Corner. 
Moral Church we bury our brothers in one piece. 
In honor of the canons of our order. Ladi Lado 
Lade Ladum Lady. These ladies know nothing 
about Red Stockings. In honor of the Nitric 
Acid ceremonies.' 

There was Daniel S., the negro teamster. He 
imagined himself the wealthy owner of coal 
mines. Once he saw God drive in a chariot to 
his window and heard him say, 'Daniel, come 
out.' Accordingly he smashed his iron bed and 
employed it as a weapon to batter down the pan- 
els of his door, and it required several attendants 
to prevent him from obeying the Lord's com- 
mand. 

There was J. S., the German printer. His 
case excited attention and was reported in the 
newspapers. He had fallen in love with a young 
lady who was living with his wife; she returned 
his passion, but as she could not marry him, she 
committed suicide. Husband and wife identi- 



Medicine Under King Mike 71 

fied her body when it was fished out of the lake. 
After that nothing in life interested him, and he 
could speak of nothing except his misfortunes. 
The cloud of melancholia settled upon him. He 
attempted to drown himself, had unsystematized 
delusions of persecution, and saw the young lady 
alive. Many graves opened to him, and he spoke 
to persons who had long been dead. Clevenger 
induced him to read an article in the Zeitschrift 
fur Psychiatrie, and the patient was startled to 
meet a case similar to his own. It sort of gave 
him a look at himself; his mind cleared, and 
he was discharged as cured, going back to his 
compositor's trade. 

Another interesting patient was P. Kelly, 
the policeman. He was patrolling Halsted 
street bridge when he was shot in the neck by a 
burglar. The result was a wound of the cervical 
sympathetic, causing incurable insanity, a genu- 
ine case of mania from traumatism. The case 
was discussed by Dr H. M. Bannister in the 
Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, and 
later was reported by Dr Clevenger in the Chi- 
cago Medical Journal and Examiner. The bur- 
glar, a friend of Mike McDonald, was acci- 
dentally sentenced for a term of six years, but 
as soon as he came out of the penitentiary, Mike 



72 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

made amends by appointing him an attendant 
at the asylum, and he was assigned to Kelly's 
ward, thus having charge of his shattered victim. 

So the cases ran, hundreds of them, illustrating 
every variety of mental disorder; not only those 
we have named, but imbecility, idiocy, stuporous 
insanity, transitory frenzy, brain lesions, and the 
usual assortment of senile dements and the he- 
bephreniacs, 'stranded on the rock of pu- 
berty.' . . . 

At length Clevenger completed his classifi- 
cations of the patients — on paper, but he wanted 
to do the same thing in fact. He therefore ap- 
proached Warden Varnell, and informed him 
that if the mild cases could be separated from the 
violent ones, their chances for recovery would 
be increased. He started to explain how the 
treatment of the insane could be made more sci- 
entific, but his enthusiasm was cut cold by a reply 
which he never forgot: 'To hell with the damned 
cranks,' answered Harry Varnell. 'They are 
cattle to me, and I don't give a damn for them 
and am here for boodle. I'm going to make a 
pile out of the bughouse, and start a big sporting 
place in the city.' Evidently the ambitious war- 
den was not satisfied with the medium-sized gam- 
bling saloon that he already possessed. While 



Medicine Under King Mike 73 

Clevenger's interest in pathology did not cease 
after this conversation, he determined to do some 
research work in the sociology of the place. 

Clevenger had read that for certain cases of 
mania a new drug was being recommended — sul- 
phonal. The conium which was used at the asy- 
lum was often inert and unreliable and he re- 
quested the warden to purchase five or ten dol- 
lars' worth of sulphonal for the drug-room, 
which was so poorly stocked that there was less 
than a dram of quinine at a time when many of 
the patients were suffering from intermittent 
fevers. Varnell refused with his customary 
oath, saying the damned sulphonal was too ex- 
pensive. But Clevenger learnt that the next 
week there was bought by the management 
$1,500 worth of whisky, wine and cigars — 
charged as sundry drugs. He learnt also what 
became of these drugs, for on Saturday night he 
heard a female giggle the command, 'Quit pour- 
ing champagne down my back, Harry.' 

These Saturday nigjht frolics were gay af- 
fairs. As soon as it grew dark, gangsters and 
their women arrived, keeping up night-long or- 
gies that made the inmates furious for want of 
sleep. Sometimes they would amuse the patients 
by shouting, Fire! It must have been a curious 



74 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

sight for Clevenger to watch these thugs and 
sluts dancing on the patients' health and on the 
people's money. The asylum was the ideal place 
for such revels, for it contained expensive Turk- 
ish and Russian baths, built 'for the patients,' 
but the scaldings discouraged them from indulg- 
ing in these luxuries, and it became the regula- 
tion thing for politicians to sleep off their de- 
bauches in the bath-rooms, being massaged to 
soberness by the county rubbers, for which the 
people seemed to pay cheerfully, as it was not 
proper that the County Commissioners should 
be drunk too long. 

Clevenger met some of these jolly Commis- 
sioners from time to time. There was John 
Hannigan, the saloon-keeper; Mike Wasser- 
mann, who ran such a notorious resort under the 
Brevoort that it was closed by the police; Dan 
Wren, the skilful forger, recently out of jail; 
Mike McCarthy, the ex-stevedore, who found 
politics more profitable than his former job; 
Buck McCarthy, the drunken terror of the 
stockyards district, a strong animal who won 
elections with his fist. 

These were the individuals who had charge of 
an American medical institution in the latter part 
of the nineteenth century. Pinel and Chia- 



Medicine Under King Mike 75 

rugi, Gardner Hill and Pliny Earl spent 
years attempting to ameliorate the conditions of 
the insane; to remove iron fetters and brutal 
keepers from these helpless people was the aim 
of the devoted lives of Dorothea Dix and John 
Conolly; Reil and the Tuke family worked 
with tongue and pen to improve the lot of their 
fallen brothers, and the great Esquirol wrote 
Des maladies mentales in two volumes — but 
Mike McDonald didn't read French. 

The inmates of the county asylum in 1883 
might just as well have lived before Pinel's 
day, for they derived little benefit from the mod- 
ern methods of treating the insane. Wilhelm 
Griesinger, of Stuttgart, made important sug- 
gestions about clinical psychiatry in his Archiv, 
but he was another of those 'damned Dutchmen.' 
The trouble was that politics ruled the asylum, 
while science was the despised outcast. The 
meanest attendant there knew that his job was 
more secure than the physician's. 

On the first of September, 1884, Dr Charles 
Roller was elected assistant physician, and in 
November he was discharged — probably because 
he found maggots in a festering ulcer. The doc- 
tor left his effects for a time in his room; they 
were thrown out into the hall by the housekeeper, 



76 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

and Varnell threatened to shoot him if he saw 

him again. 

Dr James G. Kiernan, upon becoming medi- 
cal superintendent, decided to make some 
changes. He issued three orders: first, that the 
attendants should restrain patients only under a 
physician's direction; second, that the night- 
watch should not administer medicines without a 
physician's specification; third, that all employes 
should take off their hats when passing thru the 
wards, and if they found it necessary to speak to 
the patients should address them as Mr, Mrs, or 
Miss, according to their civil state. 

No attention was paid to these requests, but 
Dr Kiernan, an impractical man, went further. 
He ordered that all bruises and injuries inflicted 
on patients should be dressed at once. Also, he 
closed the liquor room for a time, and the engi- 
neer got so angry he swore he would kick the door 
down if he didn't get his share of beer and 
whisky. A female patient was suffering from a 
disorder peculiar to her sex, and in violation of 
all the rules of common humanity and hygiene, 
the housekeeper, Miss McAndrews, took her 
from her ward and set her to scrubbing floors. 
When Dr Kiernan expostulated with her, she 
answered, 'I do not propose to have anything to 



Medicine Under King Mike 77 

do with you or your orders.' The entire medical 
staff united in a request for Miss McAndrews' 
discharge, but they were invited to go to hell, 
and Commissioner Leyden announced that if 
Dr Kiernan mentioned the subject again he 
would make it hot for him. 

For such and similar attempts at reforms Dr 
Kiernan was knocked down by an attendant, 
struck by the engineer, and choked by the night- 
watchman so that he had a hemorrhage and was 
confined for some time to his bed. 'What are you 
going to do about it?' asked the political em- 
ploye. 'You haven't got enough pull to fire me.' 

Dr Delia E. Howe may have appreciated the 
honor of being the first medical woman in a pub- 
lic asylum, yet at times she found fame a trouble- 
some bubble. She found that the patients were 
insufficiently clothed, even tho they brought 
clothes with them — the attendants often stole the 
patients' bedding and raiment to help pay gam- 
bling debts; and while suffering from a lack of 
proper garments, they were employed in making 
fancy work for the housekeeper and others; nor 
were they allowed to come from their rooms until 
the task was completed. 

The dope-bottle was freely dosed out to pa- 
tients to keep them quiet, directly against the 



78 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

doctor's instructions. Dr Howe found that the 
drug-room was turned into a saloon. Often she 
had to wait for a prescription needed for an ur- 
gent case, until the druggist had served with 
beer, port, sherry, or whisky a room full of men. 
She never visited the drug-room but with trepi- 
dation, and always felt relieved when she left its 
degrading atmosphere. The pharmacist repeat- 
edly remarked that the drugs sent to him were 
unfit to be compounded, and he complained of 
being turned into a bar-tender. 

Dr Howe was much annoyed to find that the 
mechanics had keys to the female wards, and 
visited them at all hours of the night. The as- 
sistant engineer was frequently detected there, 
amorous, intoxicated, half-dressed. The female 
patients were all more or less mentally upset, but 
several of them, like the actress Capitola Del- 
zell, were neat in their habits and comely in 
face and body — and they were also helpless. 
Some of them had relatives at home, praying 
and waiting for their recovery, but rape was not 
likely to aid in their mental restoration. It was 
now easy for Dr Howe to understand where the 
illegitimate babies came from, nor was it difficult 
to comprehend why mothers who had insane chil- 
dren fell on their knees before judges and im- 



Medicine Under King Mike 79 

plored them to send their daughters anjrsvhere 
except to Dunning. Such outrages were known 
to the community, and had Chicago been one of 
Walt Whitman's great cities, 'where the popu- 
lace rise at once against the never-ending audac- 
ity of elected persons,' the county commissioners 
and their henchmen would have dangled from 
the nearest telegraph-poles. But instead of that 
a male attendant who had been relieved of his 
key because he entered a female ward too clum- 
sily at one o'clock in the morning, received the 
instrument back the next day, and Chicago 
boasted that the statistics of the cattle industry 
showed an increase over last year. 

One of Dr Howe's associates observed an em- 
ploye pounding a defenceless dement, and when 
she sought to remonstrate, she received what she 
called her 'first taste of discipline,' for he gave 
her a blow that felled her to the ground. 'What 
are you going to do about it?' he asked. 'You 
haven't got enough pull to fire me.' Delia 
Howe had been a missionary in China — perhaps 
that ruffian's fist convinced her that reform 
should begin at home. 

The food, so important a consideration in the 
treatment of the insane, would have been re- 
jected by an average house-dog. A carpenter 



) 



8C The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

named Hughes once saw the butcher dump a 
load of putrefying meat in the kitchen. 'What 
do you do with that?' he asked. 'That's for the 
cranks.' 'In the name of goodness, you don't 
mean to say that you cook that for them?' 'No, 
I don't, but the cook does. They don't know the 
difference. ' The patients were far away from 
the sad sea-waves, yet there was such a lack of 
fruit and vegetables that many of them suffered, 
and some of them perished, from the former 'ca- 
lamity of sailors,' — scurvy. 

The chief article of diet was pigs' heads, hair 
and dirt and all — they were brought to the tables 
unshaved and uncleaned. With her spoon Dr 
Howe lifted up from a patient's plate the head 
of a hog suffering from catarrh, and in its un- 
washed snout was an iron ring. When the relic 
was exhibited to the commissioners, Mike Was- 
sermann queried, 'What did you expect to find 
— gold watches?' But the other commissioners 
viewed the situation with more perspicuity, and 
accordingly decided: Whereas, it is unseemly 
that iron rings should be found in pig-snouts, 
and Whereas, precautions must be taken against 
the recurrence of such an accident, Resolved, that 
no more lady physicians be employed at the asy- 
lum. Exit, Dr Howe. 



Medicine Under King Mike 81 

Clevenger's mail and telegrams were not de- 
livered, and once when he stepped into Dyche's 
drug-store, Drs Quine and Baxter happened to 
be there, and they asked him why he did not an- 
swer telephone calls — their messages to him had 
been intercepted. 

Clevenger was informed he could perform no 
more autopsies — it was against religion. This 
was an astonishing bit of news for a pathologist, 
but there was really nothing surprising about it: 
the commissioners were selling the bodies to the 
medical schools. 

A patient complained of being ill, and was 
constantly going for water. The attendant said 
to him, 'Come, Jack, if you won't work I'll put 
the jacket on you.' 'I can't work.' So the jacket 
was put on. In a day or two the patient died; 
cause of death — 'typhoid fever.' Not only were 
the male employes a coarse set of men, but sev- 
eral of the female attendants were frequently 
drunk and always impudent. Ireland seemed to 
have emptied her scum into the Cook County In- 
sane Asylum. Attendants were so neglectful that 
their charges found opportunities to commit sui- 
cide; some of the patients died from starvation, 
others from violent brutality. A father named 
August Herzberg came to the asylum to visit 



82 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

his son, and was treated to the spectacle of see- 
ing four attendants attack the boy and tear 
nearly all the clothes from his body, after which 
they knocked him down and kneeled on his stom- 
ach, accusing him of concealing some trivial ar- 
ticle. 

At the end of the nineteenth century, the con- 
servative Secretary Wines, of the State Board 
of Charities, thus described the condition of the 
insane in Illinois: 

They are sometimes chained to the benches and to 
the -floors; penned up in pens without any doors, but 
only having holes in the wall thru which to pass food 
and water; kept locked up in solitary rooms for years, 
without going out or setting foot on the ground. The 
keepers intimidate them by brute force. Pistols are 
sometimes fired over their heads. 

In what respect does this picture differ from 
the one that Esquirol drew at the beginning of 
the century, when he wrote to the Minister of the 
Interior : 

Nude were the lunatics I saw, covered with rags, 
stretched on the pavement, a little straw to defend 
them from the damp cold. I saw them grossly fed, 
deprived of air to breathe, of water to slake their 



Medicine Under King Mike 83 

thirst, and of things necessary to life. I saw them 
committed into the hands of whippers, a prey to their 
brutality. 

Upon reaching manhood's estate, after mature 
reflection, Shobal Vail Clevenger had de- 
cided to abandon his profession of engineer and 
become a physician in order to escape the politi- 
cal criminal, and by a trick of fate he found him- 
self the crony of drunkards, gamblers, burglars, 
ravishers, murderers. He had eluded Captain 
Howgate, but bumped into the arms of Mike 
McDonald. 

There was one day in the year when Mike 
McDonald and Buck McCarthy and Harry 
Varnell shone in especial strength and splendor 
— election day. By working hard that day they 
lived in ease for the days to come. There was 
a young Jewish dreamer who had imagined that 
when all the people won the franchise and 
marched to the polls, each citizen expressing 
himself by ballot, the dawn of democracy and 
the triumph of justice would tread on their heels 
— the end of demagogues and tyrants, the era of 
the Brotherhood of Man. But if practical poli- 
ticians ever heard of Ferdinand Lasalle, they 
must have laughed his pipe-dreams to scorn. At 



84 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

the back door of Mike's saloon, in the alley, was 
a voting-shed with a little window cut out of 
boards; during the general elections in Chicago 
the citizens passed thru the crooked lane, hold- 
ing up their ballots and a hand collected them. 
The owner of the hand was invisible, but who- 
ever he was, he could have informed the father 
of social democracy how candidates are elected. 

On the fateful November morning of the year 
1884 the bosses got ready to round up their herds 
of cattle. Mike McDonald issued orders from 
his gambling-dive, Buck McCarthy polished 
his fists, and Harry Varnell gave his revolver 
a love-tap. The warden had a congenial task 
before him: to make the suburbs of Chicago vote 
one way — his way. In the second precinct of 
Norwood Park there registered a total of 129 
voters, but under Varnell's adroit management 
225 votes were cast, 207 for his ticket. Among 
the exponents of higher mathematics, a W. H. 
Frogart, known to local fame as Cracker Bill, 
excited the admiration of the gang by the num- 
ber of times he re-voted. Paupers from the poor- 
house, and the insane from the asylum, were 
brought to the polls to increase the ballots, and 
as Varnell had not erudition enough to invent 
aliases for all of them, they were registered un- 



Medicine Under King Mike 85 

der the cognomen of some Chicago celebrity, as 
Pat Carrol, Austin Doyle, Mike McDonald, 
Henry Donovan. 

It might be presumed that with legitimate vot- 
ers and tax-payers it was found necessary to 
adopt more subtle and refined methods than were 
employed with beggars and lunatics, but Var- 
nell knew only the methods of intimidation and 
fraud. Early in the day an honest old farmer, 
Herman Schroeder, cast his ballot, number 
155, and went home; later another vote was de- 
posited in his name, number 176. The vote of 
Joseph Koenig, also a farmer, was cast out with- 
out any adequate cause. An assistant engineer 
under Mr Kavanatjgh voted according to his 
convictions, and was discharged. Richard Sus- 
sick, a laundryman at the infirmary, possessed a 
political creed that was not above suspicion — in 
fact he belonged to the opposite party. Var- 
nell watched Sussick when he voted, and said 
to J. K. Beatty, 'Keep track of that vote; I 
want to see it when the count is made,' — it was 
before the Australian ballot. Now Dick Sus- 
sick was no plumed hero; he was a laundryman 
who wanted to keep his job, and he voted Var- 
nell's way. Dr Clevenger also was threatened 
with expulsion if he did not vote according to 



86 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

directions, but the ward heeler Lee doubted if 
he would be obedient. E. D. Smith, an old resi- 
dent of Norwood Park, was incensed at the 
wholesale bulldozing. 'Things have come to a 
pretty pass,' he remarked to Varnell, 'when 
in this enlightened section of the country a man 
can't vote as he pleases.' 'I don't propose/ re- 
plied Varnell, angrily, 'that any man who eats 
bread and butter under me shall vote any other 
ticket.' Such was the boasted freedom of the 
American voter. 

In the corral there was hardly a decent kick. 
One after the other the victims stepped meekly 
forward to be branded by Varnell's iron. It 
was now seen why he had been made warden — 
he was a handy man for the gang. Then came 
the surprise. Some one was untamed and un- 
lassoed, some one had proved balky and was 
rearing high, allowing no rider on his back. The 
loafers in Mike's saloon put down their beer 
glasses and listened. It was unbelievable, but 
there it was — in the first column of the third page 
of the Chicago Inter Ocean. It was headed Ap- 
peal to Physicians, and spoke of the numberless 
outrages against the patients that the politicians 
in charge had been committing for years, and 
urged all honest men to be sure that the county 



Medicine Under King Mike 87 

commissioners for whom they voted bore no al- 
legiance to these gamblers and thieves. In those 
days it was dangerous to be a reformer in Chi- 
cago ; either he was privately stabbed in the back 
and thrown in a sewer, as happened to Dr P. 
Cronin, of the Clan-na-gael, when he proved 
that Alexander Sullivan was gambling away 
on the board of trade the patriotic money that 
had been collected to liberate Ireland; or else 
the agitator was legally executed, as happened 
to labor leaders like Albert Parsons and Au- 
gust Spies. The man who wrote the Appeal to 
Physicians and affixed his signature to it was the 
bravest man in Chicago, and the name that it 
bore was S. V. Clevenger, M.D. 

That night a bullet came crashing thru his 
room, narrowly missing his wife and daughter, 
breaking a pane of his book-case, and lodging 
in a volume of Gegenbaur's Comparative Anat- 
omy, As Clevenger could not afford to lose 
his valuable books in this manner, he resigned 
his position. Never again was there a special 
pathologist at the Cook County Insane Asylum. 

Dr Clevenger was by no means the first phy- 
sician who walked out of the asylum because of 
political corruption. Some years previous, three 
reputable neurologists — Professors Jewell, 



88 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

Brower and Lyman — were connected with the 
asylum; as soon as they clashed with the ring 
they escaped from Dunning, quickly and quietly, 
and rarely alluded to their experiences. These 
men were good in imparting text-book knowl- 
edge and in preparing students for examinations 
— they were not reformers. But in Dr Cleven- 
ger the gang found a different species of the 
genus homo. Armed with evidence, bitter with 
indignation, eager for justice, Clevenger vowed 
not to rest until he had exposed the county com- 
missioners. 

He procured affidavits from various individ- 
uals testifying to the outrages they had wit- 
nessed. Clevenger tried to induce the Union 
League to listen to this material, but the director 
was 'just going away on his vacation.' Cleven- 
ger left a statement of abuses with the secretary 
of the Chicago Citizens' Association, and that 
enterprising individual copied the accusations, 
and sent them — to Mike McDonald. Cleven- 
ger appointed a committee of the Chicago Medi- 
cal Society to investigate the matter, but its 
members either compromised with the politicians 
or grew luke-warm — all except sturdy old Dr 
Paoli, who fought against the asylum clique as 
vigorously as he fought in favor of his two hob- 



Medicine Under King Mike 89 

bies: women in medicine, and the freethought 
propaganda of Tom Paine and Bob Ingersoll. 
Mrs Shedd and Mrs Henrotin, faithful as ever, 
headed a reform group, and Clevenger urged 
the Women's Club to help in the crusade; they 
gave him a pink tea, and the wives and daugh- 
ters of Chicago's successful business men listened 
to his recital of horrors, and smilingly told him 
they enjoyed his lecture very much — it was more 
interesting than the minister's description of the 
scenery of Palestine. Everywhere Clevenger 
found these sloughs of unconcern that dampened 
his hopes. He appealed to preachers of various 
denominations, but they 'declined to discuss poli- 
tics in the pulpit.' 

At last the popular Rev. David Swing agreed 
to bring the woes of the county asylum before 
his large congregation; his sermons were re- 
ported in the Monday papers, and Clevenger 
bought a copy of the Inter Ocean, anxiously 
turning to the second page where Dr Swing's 
eloquence filled three columns. In the first, he 
spoke of Noah and Elijah, of the oaks of Dodona 
and the raving Sibyl, of the dog Cerberus and 
the Golden Fleece, of Queen Mab and Paradise 
Lost, of Aladdin's lamp and the ruins of Calyp- 
so's grotto, of Adam and Eve and the council 



90 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

where Satan went as the ambassador of evil, of 
the Ides of March and the idea of the Trinity — 
one topic had no connexion with another, but 
the pastor of the flock had to show off his clas- 
sical knowledge; in the second column he men- 
tioned perhaps half the names that are found 
in the index of Taine's History of English Lit- 
erature — the Rev. David Swing was certainly a 
learned gentleman; in the third column he ex- 
citedly asked if the imagination was dying, and 
with many exclamation points and ejaculatory 
remarks he proved it was not, far from it, on 
the contrary. But what had he said about the 
atrocities at the asylum? Amid his flowery apos- 
trophes he had uttered this line: 'To the di- 
ploma of medical science must be added one 
signed by the merciful name of Jesus Christ.' 
Three columns of inane twaddle, while Cleven- 
ger had expected that Swing would risk his 
popularity by attacking current conditions. O 
Simple Simon — as Hilgard warned you in 
Washington: Go home. 

Clevenger wrote article after article for the 
newspapers, and the editors wore out their blue 
pencils and overfilled their waste-paper baskets. 
Several times his life was in peril; he received 
requests to make night-calls in neighborhoods 



Medicine Under King Mike 91 

where he previously had no patients. He was 
about to go, but on second thought decided to 
let Robert Bruce go instead. Bobby was a pri- 
vate detective who tried hard to get some excite- 
ment out of modern life by drinking to excess, 
by brandishing a revolver, and by mixing up in 
mysteries; he wounded a man in a boarding 
house, slew the proprietor of a saloon, and spent 
a year in prison, but otherwise was an honest and 
reliable fellow, except when drunk. On his let- 
ter-heads was a radiant eye beneath the motto 
Fides et Jnstitia, while at the side a spider was 
spinning a web above the maxim, We never give 
up. Bruce investigated the 'patient,' found 
there was no such person at the address given, 
but that two tough politicians, Gleeson and 
Ryan, had concocted a plot to pounce upon the 
doctor and 'do him up.' He further discovered 
that the engineer Kavanaugh offered a former 
convict $100 if he would kill Clevenger. These 
were Clevenger's rewards : stupidity, misunder- 
standing, laughter, threats. One poor man 
against a powerful clique — mountains of discour- 
agement rose in his path. 

Yet somehow, some way, somewhere, there 
came a turning of the tide. The accumulated 
evidence overflowed the high banks of indiffer- 



92 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

ence. From all sides witnesses poured in, add- 
ing fresh tales to Clevenger' s accusations. As 
the testimony proceeded, it involved merchants 
whose reputations were considered untarnished. 
Governor Oglesby summoned the State Board 
of Charities to investigate the situation. 

In the crowded court room Clevenger met 
the county commissioners: 

'Did you ever see me at the asylum in an in- 
toxicated condition?' asked Commissioner Van 
Pelt. 

'Yes, sir,' answered Clevenger. 

'How drunk, please?' 

'So drunk you could not navigate.' 

'Did you ever see me at the dances at the 
asylum?' 

'Yes, sir, I have.' 

'Was I drunk?' 

'You were.' 

'Was I accompanied by disreputable women?' 

'You mingled with women who were boister- 
ous and slangy.' 

'How did I act?' 

'Disgraceful.' 

Commissioner Wassermann then mounted the 
stand : 

'Did you ever see me drunk at the asylum?' 



Medicine Under King Mike 93 

'Yes, sir.' 

'Did you ever see Commissioner Ochs drunk 
at the institution?' 

'No, sir, not Commissioner Ochs.' 

'Commissioner Hannigan?' 

'Repeatedly; I seldom saw him sober.' 

The commissioners had devised this meeting 
with Clevenger, thinking he would not dare at- 
tack them to their faces — but this was the time 
that they miscalculated. Why, even the plans 
of the Hon. Michael McDonald sometimes 
went astray; for instance, Mike did not care to 
cross the ocean, but he wished to enjoy the beau- 
ties of Paris, so he visited a French woman until 
it was time to save her good name; thereupon 
Mike offered a policeman several thousand dol- 
lars, a house on Washington Boulevard, and a 
city position for life if he would marry the trans- 
planted Parisienne and father the forthcoming 
child; the limb of the law accepted the offer; it 
was a clever plan, but alas — when the baby girl 
grew up she resembled Mike, nose and mouth 
and eyes, and she smiled sweetly, just like her 
daddy. 

But where was Mike during the troublous 
days that the alarmed commissioners were be- 
ing pelted by the muckrakers ? He and his f am- 



94 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

ily were down south, enjoying the palmettos of 
Asheville, North Carolina — till Mike's vacation 
was cut short by a telegram in cipher. The 
dapper boss hastened to the asylum, burnt the 
books and records, and lit a cigarette. The worst 
was over — now let the prosecution proceed. 
Thruout the trial, confessed his wife, nightly con- 
ferences took place in the mansion of the master 
boodler. 

The callers used to sit there and wrangle un- 
til after midnight, and the loud talk would reach 
the room upstairs where Mrs McDonald was 
sitting, and often she would come down and warn 
them to lower their voices — Bob Bruce might be 
eavesdropping. Father Leyden, brother of the 
implicated commissioner, was there; and the 
wives of Dan Wren and Harry Varnell 
frequently spoke of their husbands to Mrs 
McDonald. Of course the ringsters came, noisy 
as ever, drinking, smoking, swearing. But there 
was another class of visitors — men who were sup- 
posed to be above reproach, whose names were 
good for untold sums along State street, and 
they were pleading before Mike as if for their 
lives. Mrs McDonald, according to her own 
words, had seen hundreds of men unnerved by 
drink and losses at play, but in those few months 






Medicine Under King Mike 95 

she heard more lords of creation break down and 
sob than in all her previous interesting career. 
As she neatly expressed it: 'They'd been bood- 
ling — that was all — and they didn't want to be 
caught.' One night she opened the door for a 
prominent merchant — she blackmailed him later 
to keep his name secret — and she saw he was in 
tears; two hours later he came out of Mike's 
room, smiling. He noticed the chief's wife sit- 
ting near the hallway, and he said to her : 'We're 
thinking of running Mr McDonald for mayor 
in the spring, Mrs McDonald.' 

But the slick grafters could no longer make 
Chicago smile. From everywhere arose a cry 
of wrath. Those Chicagoans who were in the 
habit of reading their newspapers at breakfast 
had to swallow a lot of dirt with their morning 
coffee. The Tribune, Daily News, Inter Ocean, 
Herald, Times, united in a chorus of denuncia- 
tion. 

'The county commissioners,' wrote one of the 
leading papers, 'are blackguards who have pros- 
tituted their trust by making a pot-house of the 
Insane Asylum and insulted honest idiocy by 
flaunting Jezebels. Their disgusting crimes, 
perpetrated at the public expense, are not likely 
to be the subject of legal investigation with a 



96 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

view to punishment, for they themselves make 
the grand juries whose duty it is to examine into 
the management of county institutions. And the 
guzzling, lying, thieving rascals of commission- 
ers kept the public jug for the benefit of those 
jurors.' 

But at last the boodlers had overstepped the 
limits of the city's tolerance. They had stolen 
too much — ten million dollars within a few years 
— and by their cruelties they made Chicago blush 
for its reputation. 'The story is a terrible one 
to go to the public outside of Chicago,' said the 
Inter Ocean. 'Does a condition of affairs exist 
in the Cook County Insane Asylum which would 
disgrace an African slave-kraal ?' asked the Daily 
News. 

So State's Attorney Julius S. Grinnell 
saw his opportunity; he instituted proceedings 
against the county crooks — 'the omnibus bood- 
lers' bill' was on its way. We must immediately 
acquit the wide-awake State's Attorney of any 
humanitarian motives; Grinnell was interested 
exclusively in Grinnell; he was a 'get-there 
Eli,' but he knew his business, and the verdict 
that he secured was one terrible word: guilty. 

Commissioner Hannigan escaped to Canada, 
but those of his fellow boodlers who were not so 



Medicine Under King Mike 97 

fleet of foot were put behind stone walls and iron 
bars. Harry Varnell and Van Pelt were 
among those convicted. It was April when little 
Van Pelt passed into the prison-yard at Joliet ; 
he looked up at the trees laden with springtime 
buds, and he said, 'The leaves are coming out — 
I wish I was a leaf.' Even a county grafter may 
have a glimpse of the Tennysonian soul. 

The law left Mike McDonald alone, but his 
wives were his ruin. Mike's first wife ran away 
with a minstrel-man ; Mike went after them, and 
he didn't kill Billy, and he brought his wife 
back. She was extremely devout, and for her 
sake Mike built a private confessional in their 
home, and took in a priest for her personal use. 
Within a year she developed such piety that she 
and the Raphael-faced priest eloped to New 
York — accompanied by Mr McDonald's dia- 
monds. This time Mike did not follow the 
mother of his children; he went to a certain sa- 
loonkeeper and bought his wife from him. The 
original Mrs McDonald did not find love and 
religion profitable in Manhattan; her tonsured 
swain appropriated her property and disap- 
peared. She wrote to her son William for 
money, admitting she was destitute. The boy 
brought the letter to his father; Mike rested his 



98 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

chin in his hand, rubbed it a little, and said 
quietly, 'Will, she's your mother.' She received 
the funds, returned to Chicago, and visited mil- 
lionaire merchants, threatening to expose their 
transactions with Mike — unless hush-money was 
forthcoming. Later she invaded the red-light 
district and opened an assignation-house. Once 
she was in the saloon at 121 South Clark street 
— in other days it had belonged to Mike — and a 
quarrel arose; she was familiar with the place, 
and she put her revolver thru a small spyhole in 
the wall and shot one of the gamblers. She went 
out by the back door and was never brought to 
trial. Mike's second mate was also a sport: 
she entered the studio of her artist-lover and 
killed him. She, too, escaped prosecution; a Mrs 
McDonald was safe in Cook County. Life is 
a gamble; many a worthless pander has won the 
slavish faithfulness of women, while Mike the 
mighty, who bossed an army of men and used the 
County of Cook as his backyard, and was the 
warmest-hearted fellow in his crowd, couldn't 
keep the devotion of a couple of strumpets. 
These domestic difficulties took the joy out of 
life, and he died a broken-hearted millionaire. 

But even before he left the streets of Chicago 
forever, he ceased to be a power in politics. Mike 




CLEVENGER, in 1888 




CLEVENGER, in 1892 



Medicine Under King Mike 99 

allowed his lieutenant, Joseph Mackin — Gen- 
tleman Joe and Chesterfield Joe, the gang called 
him — to serve a prison term for an election con- 
spiracy, and bitter feelings were brewed in the 
political pot. Later, Mike played another un- 
forgivable trick: to secure the franchise for a 
long elevated route it was necessary that an ordi- 
nance be passed by the city council, and in the 
presence of forty aldermen Mike wrote forty 
names on forty envelopes, placed a thousand-dol- 
lar bill within each and handed the precious 
packet across the counter to a trustworthy bar- 
tender. Forty men hastened away to vote for 
Mike's franchise, and forty men hastened back 
to receive their reward; they called for their en- 
velopes, tore them open, and each found a dollar 
bill. The city council was enraged; mutiny 
awoke within Mike's camp, and encompassed by 
enemies, the chieftain fell; politicians arose on 
Clark street who knew him not. Thus ended the 
reign of King Mike. 

In the city of Chicago are many statues, but 
somewhere in her numerous parks or along her 
ample boulevards is space for one more: a monu- 
ment should be erected to Dr Shobal Vail 
Clevenger, the pioneer anti-boodler of the state 
of Illinois. 



IV 
THE KANKAKEE AFFAIR 

CLEVENGER'S adventures in jurispru- 
dence did not terminate with his retirement 
from Dunning. The special pathologist was 
metamorphosed into an expert, and his services 
were requisitioned in spinal concussion and in- 
sanity issues — at the rate of one hundred dollars 
a day. During his career as an alienist he was 
summoned to Ohio, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Iowa, 
Indiana and Pennsylvania, tho naturally most 
of his cases were in Chicago. 

Back in the thirties, Isaac Ray wrote the 
Medical Jurisprudence of Insanity, thus open- 
ing the darkest chapter in American medicine. 
Juridical medicine is a hybrid incapable of any 
virtue. Unfortunately, it is medicine and not 
the law that suffers in this instance. Trans- 
planted from his clinic, confused in the meshes 
of the hypothetical question, heckled by some 
'smart lawyer,' the physician usually makes an 

ass of himself. But this is by no means the worst. 

100 



The Kankakee Affair 101 

The law-court has become an auction-block 
where medical experts sell themselves to the 
highest bidder. The side that has money to spare 
can procure the number of experts it wants, and 
just the sort of testimony it wants. Much of 
the disrepute into which our profession has fallen 
is due to the alienist. 

Chicago's most brilliant lunatic — Frank Col- 
lier — listened to Dr Kiernan attempting to 
prove him insane. Collier, who was a lawyer, 
conducted his own defence, and began to cross- 
examine Kiernan. Within a few minutes the 
expert was floundering helplessly in a bottomless 
swamp of misstatements and contradictions. 
They argued about paresis, and the layman 
showed a more intimate acquaintance with the 
subject than the alienist. The attorney tripped 
and trapped the doctor, and got him so rattled 
and excited, that it looked very much as if the 
squirming Kiernan and not the self-possessed 
Collier was the insane man. 'Easy now, easy 
now, doctor,' cautioned Collier, 'y° u are exhib- 
iting the very symptoms that you are charging 
against me.' Collier later wrote an article in 
which he declared Kiernan had the dress of a 
Zulu, the manners of a Patagonian, and the face 
of an orang-outang. 



102 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

Clevenger was likewise called upon to testify 
in this remarkable case, but no Kiernanistic ca- 
lamities befell him. On the witness-stand he was 
genial, alert, frank ; his answers showed an exten- 
sive acquaintance with the practice and literature 
of psychiatry, but he never pretended to omnis- 
cience, was willing enough to say, 'I don't know,' 
and thus was not discomfited. Clevenger could 
have been a successful alienist — if conditions in 
the courts were different. But since even such 
a hardened defender of Things-as-They-Are as 
Allan McLane Hamilton finds it necessary 
to condemn the present system of expert -testi- 
mony, it is not surprising that the soul of Clev- 
enger revolted against this 'degraded expert 
business,' to quote his own bitter phrase. 

In 1893 there came an unexpected change in 
the affairs of Dr Clevenger. In that year, for 
the second time, Mr Cleveland was elected 
president of the United States; Grover Cleve- 
land was one of the men the author of The 
American Commonwealth had in mind when he 
wrote his chapter, 'Why great men are not 
chosen presidents.' But the Cleveland land- 
slide brought a man of another stamp into the 
executive chair of Illinois — John P. Altgeld. 
Wading across the filthy morass of American 



The Kankakee Affair 103 

politics have been a few clean spirits, such as 
Henry George and Golden Rule Jones. To 
this small group Governor Altgeld belongs. 
That he was a politician cannot be denied; he 
knew how to sling the buncombe. 'I like Chicago,' 
he told a Chicago audience at the Auditorium. 
'I would rather be a private citizen in Chicago, 
standing around on the street-corners with my 
hands in my pockets, than be the greatest poten- 
tate on earth somewhere else.' (Applause.) 
But there was another side to Altgeld. His 
book Live Questions proves him to have been no 
vulgar partyite; portions of it might have been 
signed by John Stuart Mill or by August 
Bebel. 

During Altgeld's administration occurred the 
great Pullman strike, in which Eugene V. Debs 
gained prominence and six months in jail; the 
president of the United States was for calling 
out the federal troops, but the governor of Illi- 
nois, with finer intelligence, protested, 'Hands 
off.' 

In one of the state prisons Altgeld found 
three men — the remnants of an effort to improve 
the fate of workingmen at a time when con- 
ditions were unbearable, and when police of- 
ficers like Captain Bonfield behaved as bru- 



104 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

tally as Cossacks under the Romanoffs. 
After repression, the explosion; there was a riot 
on Haymarket Square, a policeman named De- 
gan was killed by a bomb thrown by an unknown 
person, a fusillade of bullets was fired at random 
into the crowd, and the law laid its hand on eight 
agitators — August Spies, Louis Lingg, Al- 
bert Parsons, Adolf Fischer, George En- 
gel, Michael Schwab, Samuel Fielden, Os- 
car Neebe. Their ringing speeches in court 
should have aroused the hosts of labor, but in- 
stead of a glorious awakening, Chicago — goaded 
on by the ever-vicious press — stained itself with 
the unforgettable crime of November 11, 1887; 
on that black day the gallows turned Albert 
Parsons, August Spies, George Engel and 
Adolf Fischer into martyrs. Louis Lingg, the 
youngest and most picturesque of the group, was 
likewise scheduled for slaughter, but his sweet- 
heart gave him a dynamite cartridge for a fare- 
well gift, and he bit the souvenir between his 
teeth and blew his intrepid head across his cell. 
The innocent Fielden, Schwab and Neebe 
were sentenced to Joliet State Prison, and there 
Altgeld found them after seven years of in- 
carceration — and liberated them. His Reasons 
for Pardoning, proving that the anarchists were 



The Kankakee Affair 105 

sent to their doom by a packed jury and corrupt 
judge without evidence, constitutes the most 
masterly defence of freedom that ever issued 
from the gubernatorial chambers at Springfield. 
Altgeld thus became the only official who 
earned a tribute of gratitude from that fiery 
poetess of discontent, Voltairine de Cleyre: 

There was a tableau ! Liberty's clear light 

Shone never on a braver scene than that. 

Here was a prison, there a man who sat 

High in the halls of state ! Beyond, the might 

Of ignorance and mobs, whose hireling press 

Yells at their bidding like the slaver's hounds, 

Ready with coarse caprice to curse or bless, 

To make or unmake rulers ! Lo, there sounds 

A grating of the doors ! And three poor men, 

Helpless and hated, having naught to give, 

Come from their long-sealed tomb, look up, and live, 

And thank this man that they are free again. 

And he — to all the world this man dares say, 

Curse as you will! I have been just this day. 

The emotion which Altgeld could inspire, 
may be sensed from one of those unforgettable 
epitaphs in the Spoon River Anthology: 

Tell me, was Altgeld elected Governor? 
For when the returns began to come in 



106 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

And Cleveland was sweeping the East, 

It was too much for you, poor old heart, 

Who had striven for democracy 

In the long, long years of defeat. 

And like a watch that is worn 

I felt you growing slower until you stopped. 

Tell me, was Aetgeed elected. 

And what did he do? 

Did they bring his head on a platter to a dancer, 

Or did he triumph for the people? 

For when I saw him 

And took his hand, 

The child-like blueness of his eyes 

Moved me to tears, 

And there was an air of eternity about him, 

Like the cold, clear light that rests at dawn 

On the hills ! 

As governor of the State it devolved upon 
Axtgeld to appoint a medical superintendent for 
the Illinois Eastern Hospital for the Insane, at 
Kankakee — the largest institution of the kind 
in Illinois, and the second largest in the United 
States : 40 acres covered with buildings, 800 acres 
under cultivation, herds of cattle, the board of 
trustees, the medical superintendent and staff 
of assistant physicians, the business manager, the 
chief clerk and other clerks, the nurses and train- 



The Kankakee Affair 107 

ing-school students, the stenographers, the en- 
gineers, the plasterers, the brick-masons, the 
painters, the male supervisor, the female super- 
visor, the book-keeper, the store-keeper, the 
watchmen, the 300 attendants, the 1,000 male 
patients, the 1,000 female inmates — it was a little 
empire of the insane on the banks of the muddy 
Kankakee. 

For fourteen years, ever since its foundation 
in 1879, this demesne had been ruled by Dr Rich- 
ard Dewey. His conduct seemed to give gen- 
eral satisfaction, and strong pressure was 
brought to bear upon Altgeld to allow Dewey 
to remain superintendent. But the governor de- 
clared he had investigated the state asylums, es- 
pecially Elgin, Jacksonville, and Kankakee, and 
found the management simply rotten. 'I am de- 
termined to have some new blood at the heads of 
these institutions,' he declared, 'and no amount 
of whimpering will prevent it.' 

When Altgeld served as judge he had lis- 
tened to the testimony of various alienists, and 
had been particularly impressed with the exten- 
sive learning and broad sympathy of one of these 
neurologists; and now that the time came for 
Altgeld to choose a medical superintendent for 
the most important insane asylum in his state, he 



108 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

thought of this man, and the result was that on 
the third of March, 1893, a doctor whose office 
was at 70 State street, and whose sign bore the 
name S. V. Clevenger, M.D., received this com- 
munication from the chairman of the committee 
on elections: 

I just came from the Governor, and he told me he 
intended to appoint you superintendent of the Insane 
Hospital at Kankakee. I could not tell him whether 
you were a democrat or not, but I hope you are. 
Please let me hear from you on that point and whether 
you will accept the position when tendered. 

C. Porter Johnson. 

The information was a complete surprise to Dr 
Clevenger. During the past decade he had built 
up a fairly lucrative practice, lectured somewhat 
and wrote much, attended to his duties at the 
Michael Reese and Alexian Brothers hospitals, 
appeared frequently in court — at other men's 
trials — kept out of politics, and had no thoughts 
of connecting himself with a public asylum. The 
request was flattering, but it was also disturbing. 
He was on friendly terms with Richard Dewey, 
and refused to displace him; only when Dr 
Dewey wrote that his relations with Kankakee 
had already been severed by the political ax did 



The Kankakee Affair 109 

Clevenger begin to consider the matter. How 
to dispose of his practice and furniture was an- 
other problem, but Clevenger was accustomed 
to moving, and decided he would go to Kan- 
kakee. 

Every newspaper in Chicago printed the news, 
and some shed tears at Dewey's dismissal, while 
others praised the governor's choice. After the 
announcement in the press, Clevenger received 
congratulations from various sorts of men, rang- 
ing all the way from E. D. Cope, one of the glo- 
ries of American science, down to T. S. Al- 
bright, a boodling ex-county commissioner. 

It is curious to note that one of Clevenger's 
friends, Alfred C. Girard, major and surgeon 
in the United States Army — he has since become 
a general — sent regrets instead of congratula- 
tions : 

I wanted to write you when I first received the news- 
papers announcing your probable appointment and 
then the accomplished fact. I wanted to say to you 
that I saw this change in your fortunes with regret, 
for two reasons. First, I am satisfied that you will 
be so crowded with administrative business that you 
will necessarily drop back from your advanced posi- 
tion as an investigator, and secondly, this appointment 



110 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

depends greatly on the good pleasure of some political 
party, and when sooner or later you will have to try 
to regain your position in private practice, you will 
find the berth occupied by numbers of men, who mean- 
while have won the confidence of the public, but who 
would not have attained prominence if you had re- 
mained in the race. 

I trust I am mistaken. For the sake of the State 
and its insane I am satisfied that no better appointment 
could have been made and your career will be a suc- 
cessful one. Still I must repeat that I fear that it will 
be lost time. 

Clevenger came to Kankakee under more fa- 
vorable auspices than he had come to Dunning: 
instead of a recent college graduate, he was an 
experienced professional man; instead of being 
only the pathologist, he was the chief physician; 
instead of a brutal warden to thwart him, he had 
an intelligent governor to aid him; instead of an 
asylum buried in corruption, he was in an insti- 
tution of honorable reputation. His fervent 
hope was that the Board of Trustees was com- 
posed of men who bore no resemblance to the 
County Commissioners; the board consisted of 
President Edmund Sill, agent for the Illinois 
Central Railroad, at Clinton; J. W. Orr, a 
banker at Tuscola, who must have been educated 



The Kankakee A fair 111 

in the eighteenth century, for when he wrote a 
letter he capitalized all his words ; the local mem- 
bers were the secretary- treasurer, D. C. Taylor, 
and F. D. Radeke, aptly described by the Chi- 




1 1 4 ^y 



MEDICAL STAFF AT KANKAKEE 

during clevengeb's superintendency 



cago Record as 'a brewer of Kankakee and a pil- 
lar of the Lutheran church.' 

Dr Clevenger was glad to find Dr Delia E. 
Howe at Kankakee; another interesting woman 
on the medical staff was Dr Effie L. Lobdell. 
Once a lunatic was choking to death, and the 



112 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

male doctors began running around looking for 
their instruments, but Effie thrust her hand into 
the patient's throat and pulled out a piece of 
glass two inches square. 

Clevenger had not been long at Kankakee 
when a young man, with whom he had a slight 
acquaintance, came to the institution in consid- 
erable distress, and related that he had written 
to the board of trustees applying for the posi- 
tion of pathologist, informing them that he had 
worked under the direction of the ablest men in 
Europe, and had references from H. H. Don- 
aldson of the University of Chicago, E. C. 
Spitzka of New York, Forel of Zurich, and 
Dejerine of Paris, yet no attention was paid to 
his application. Suddenly he asked Clevenger 
what he was doing at Kankakee, and much as- 
tonished and delighted was he to learn that Clev- 
enger was the new superintendent, for Cleven- 
ger gave him the pathologist's place, thus put- 
ting him on the first round of the ladder of suc- 
cess, for that young man was Adolf Meyer of 
Zurich, the present Professor of Psychiatry at 
the Johns Hopkins University. 

One of Clevenger's early acts was to inspect 
the general conditions of the inmates, and the 
first examination proved that the insane are not 



The Kankakee Affair 113 

immune from the ailments of normal mortals: 
fifty patients were found suffering from eye 
troubles, twenty-five had diseases of the ear, ten 
needed treatment for hernias and painful rup- 
tures, two hundred and fifty women were afflicted 
with some uterine derangement, and almost 
everyone had decayed teeth. 

The regular staff could not cope with this mass 
of pathology, but Clevenger secured the serv- 
ices of several Chicago specialists — dentists, 
ophthalmologists, otologists, gynecologists. As 
they gave their skill gratuitously, Clevenger 
could not expect them to pay their own fare to 
and from Kankakee, so he invited the Illinois 
Central Railroad Company to participate in the 
charity, and the road immediately furnished free 
transportation to these visiting doctors. 

There was no reason why the trustees should 
oppose this innovation except that it was an in- 
novation — but this is usually a sufficient reason 
for trustees, and the voluntary specialists were 
soon excluded from Kankakee. 

Clevenger had intended to make Kankakee a 
civil service institution, but on the seventh of 
March, only four days after the chairman of the 
committee of elections informed him of the prof- 
fered superintendentship, he received from Free 



114 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

P. Morris a note to the effect that he should ap- 
point Robert O. Pennewill business manager 
of the hospital. Two months later he told Clev- 
enger to appoint Charles Harwood store- 
keeper. But who was Free P. Morris that he 
issued orders to Dr Clevenger with such an air 
of assurance? In the first place, he was a rascal, 
but in the second place he was the Iroquois mem- 
ber of the Illinois legislature, and chairman of the 
committee on judiciary of the house of repre- 
sentatives. Then Trustee Sill instructed Clev- 
enger to appoint Hubert Reynolds farmer at 
the asylum farm. Then Trustee Orr sent word 
to Clevenger to appoint Miss Jennie Brinton 
stenographer. Then Trustee Radeke forward- 
ed his nephew E. Radeke to Clevenger, with 
a note of introduction stating, 'Any ting you can 
do that may lead to his fourture wilfare will be 
apriviated by me.' From this note, which was 
one of his most careful literary efforts, as it was 
written in ink instead of with his usual pencil, it 
will be seen that F. D. Radeke spelled like Josh 
Billings — but Josh was only fooling. Radeke 
could afford to scoff at book education ; he manu- 
factured lager and Vienna bottled beer, and like 
the brewers whom Samuel Johnson immortal- 
ized, he was 'rich beyond the dreams of avarice.' 



The Kankakee Affair 115 

Oh, merit is a fine thing, and civil service rules 
have no equal, but the way to enter the Illinois 
Eastern Hospital for the Insane was to cultivate 
the acquaintance of Free P. Morris and the 
Board of Trustees. 

Too many people came to the Kankakee insti- 
tution who had no legitimate business there — 
crowds of idlers, troops of excursionists, giggling 
and babbling visitors curious for a new sensa- 
tion, and some suspicious-looking characters who 
conversed in low tones with the employes or even 
with the Board of Trustees. No self-respecting 
hospital for diseases of the flesh would tolerate 
such disturbances — why then should a hospital 
for diseases of the mind permit this nuisance? 

On the twenty-first of May, Clevenger de- 
cided to introduce a new rule: all who entered 
the grounds had to sign their name; not that he 
was particularly anxious for their autographs, 
but it would give him an idea of the number of 
visitors, and might serve to keep some away. Lit- 
tle did Clevenger anticipate the rage which this 
regulation fomented; the employes were ready 
to mutiny, the strangers cursed 'the autocrat,' 
the Board of Trustees spoke of dismissing him, 
and the Kankakee Times bespattered him with 



116 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

editorial dirt. Some of the local wits sang this 
quatrain : 

Is my name written there 
On its pages bright and fair; 
On the register of the Hospital, 
Is my name written there? 

Within a week the registry-book was thrown 
into the waste-heap, with many blank pages des- 
tined never to know a human name. 

There was one day that especially annoyed 
Clevenger — the Sabbath; every summer Sun- 
day the street-cars could be seen filled with pas- 
sengers bound for Radeke's beer and then the 
hospital. Finally Dr Clevenger issued a cir- 
cular To Visitors, explaining that the grounds 
were overrun with pleasure-seekers who intended 
no mischief, but whose thoughtlessness had pre- 
cisely the same effect as if they were purposely 
malicious. He pointed out that near the wing 
wards are paths meant as short cuts for em- 
ployes, and in defiance of notices posted at the 
entrances to these walks, visitors often saunter 
along, close to the open windows and converse 
with patients, sometimes gibing them and other- 
wise behaving improperly. Throngs of sight- 
seers, whose ideas of mental diseases are ex- 



The Kankakee A fair 117 

tracted mainly from sensational novels, and are 
prompted by a very discreditable curiosity, troop 
thru the central building and expect to be ad- 
mitted to the wards, in many cases stating that 
they wish to be shocked by the horrible sights and 
plainly requesting to be shown the worst cases. 

Citizens should remember, he exhorted, that 
this is nearly the twentieth century, and that 
while the care of the insane has advanced to an 
extent that the mentally afflicted are treated as 
sick human beings, such behavior on the part of 
visitors befits better the tenth century when these 
unfortunates were publicly and legally flogged, 
and the populace gathered to deride those sup- 
posed to be possessed by devils. The institution 
on the banks of the Kankakee River is a hospital 
for the sick in mind, and not a menagerie. He 
pointed out that many of the patients there are 
in the first, and therefore most curable stage of 
their disorder. Then he asked the visitors to 
imagine how they would resent some loved one 
of their own being on exhibition before a mis- 
cellaneous mob, and their chances of recovery in- 
terfered with thru such idle curiosity. Thus he 
went on explaining, and concluded by saying that 
it becomes necessary to adopt the following rules : 
relatives and friends of patients are always wel- 



118 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

come, and physicians and medico-legal students 
will be admitted readily, but hereafter the gates 
on Sunday will be closed to mere pleasure-hunt- 
ers. This four-page leaflet exhibits such sympa- 
thy for the insane, and breathes such a determina- 
tion to save them from insult and injury, that it 
reads like a chapter from the heart of Pinel. 

But again Clevenger learnt what it means to 
antagonize men, and conspicuous among his op- 
ponents was the brewer Radeke — if there were 
no Sunday crowds, who would buy his beer? At 
the state institution, as at the county asylum, the 
saloon-keeper loomed large. The ten years faded 
away in a mist. The Kankakee River ran dry, 
and Clevenger was again on the sandy plains of 
Dunning. The features of Free P. Morri& 
seemed to turn into the face of Mike McDon- 
ald, and the brewer Radeke looked like the bru- 
tal Varnell. 

The opposition of boodlers only served to whet 
Clevenger's fighting soul. The more he 
prowled, the more he saw, and what he saw was 
not good. Bitterness increased on both sides. 
We might give a list of details, but it would be 
repetition — Dunning all over again. Perhaps 
Clevenger was not as strong as he had been; 
perhaps it is not hygienic to add night-work to; 



The Kankakee Affair 119 

the labor of the day, for within a short time the 
superintendent overstepped the boundaries of 
health; he did not seek an invalid's bed, but it was 
a wrecked Clevenger that walked thru the hos- 
pital, denouncing political graft. On the third 
of June, at 4.15 p. m., Clevenger was handed 
this note: 

Owing to the overwork of Dr Clevenger, Superin- 
tendent of the Hospital, it is considered advisable by 
the Board of Trustees to give him a vacation, for 
recuperation, during which time the Board assumes 
absolute control of this institution; 

Therefore, be it resolved, that Dr S. V. Clevenger 
is hereby granted a vacation of two weeks, during which 
time he is to be relieved from all duties pertaining to 
this institution, the said vacation to commence on June 
3rd, 1893. 

Clevenger went to his son's ranch at Raw 
Hide Buttes, Wyoming: superintendent for 
three months and nervous prostration, then a cat- 
tle-farm far from sin and society. During those 
two weeks Raw Hide Buttes saw more mail than 
ever before; Clevenger conducted an enormous 
correspondence for a man suffering from general 
exhaustion. He was kept informed about the 
hospital by a member of the medical staff, Chap- 



120 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

man V. Dean, who proved a loyal and affection- 
ate friend to Clevenger; Dr Dean was a col- 
lege chum of William F. Dose, Altgeld's sec- 
retary, and they were still on the most cordial 
terms. One of Dean's letters to Clevenger 
is worth preserving because of its pen-picture of 
the redoubtable Radeke : 

Summer has settled down upon us since you left; 
Albert and I went up the river the day before yes- 
terday in a row-boat, and took our first swim in the 
Kankakee. Mr Sill left here about a week ago, and I 
haven't seen a single specimen of the 'genus trustee' 
since then in this vicinity. Things are running along 
very smoothly (that is — fairly so) under the direction 
of Dr 'Pegger,' who would make a very able driver for 
our band-wagon indeed had he but a little more con- 
fidence in himself — could he but muster up a little more 
moral courage and faith in his own ability, and exuvi- 
ate that thick skin of Deweyism which seems to stick 
to him like a blanket to an Indian in winter-time. Dr 
Effie Lobdell and I sit just at the driver's elbow, 
however; take good care that he keeps the middle of 
the road, and you may depend we see to it that what- 
ever happens on our journey, schedule time is main- 
tained. 

I have kept Dose fully informed of the situation 
here. We spent last Sunday at the World's Fair to- 
gether, and I went into detail on a great many points, 



The Kankakee Affair 121 

and I was informed that they are only waiting at 
Springfield for the brewer to show his hand — to make 
some overt move — that shall give the governor sufficient 
cause and just reason to remove him. 

The governor 'has it in' for Radeke for wiring him 
at Champaign (after his speech to the college boys, 
which I enclose) to 'come up here immediately,' as 
his 'presence was needed;' in fact the governor told 
Radeke in my presence at the supper-table that he had 
put him to great inconvenience, and had he known how 
things were he should never have come up here out 
of his way — there was no necessity for his visit what- 
ever, etc., and poor Radeke hung his head like a 
whipped spaniel — nearly swallowed his knife — much to 
the disgust of his vis a vis, who chanced to be Mrs 
Altgeld. Dr Lobdell told me later on: 'I placed 
him in the light opposite her, so she could see just what 
kind of a swine he really was.' For prudent fore- 
thought, commend me to the women folks. 

It is nearly dinner-time now, and I must close. I 
hope you will enjoy your vacation and come back to 
us prepared to 'turn the hose on.' 

At the expiration of the two weeks, Cleven- 
ger was ready to return to duty, but his vaca- 
tion was again extended — this time without pay. 
The fact was this: the trustees discharged him. 
Governor Altgeld now realized that Cleven- 
ger could not work in harmony with politicians, 



122 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

and giving him $1,000 above his salary, he let him 
go. It was an awful fizzle — ousted after three 
months, and nothing accomplished. Now he had 
to return to Chicago, and try to regain his for- 
mer practice. So friend Girard was not only a 
major and a surgeon — but also a prophet. 

Not long afterwards, half of the trustees were 
expelled, and the other half resigned; the next 
superintendent was somewhat vague about what 
he did with the small sum of thirty thousand dol- 
lars; and a female inmate — Kitty Ward — gave 
birth to the inevitable illegitimate baby. These 
incidents brought the Kankakee asylum a little 
official attention and considerable newspaper 
fame, and perhaps it was with a grim 'I-told-you- 
so/ that Clevenger pasted the clippings into his 
scrap-book. 



DREAMING AND DRIFTING 

FOR several years Clevenger was neurolo- 
gist to a Catholic and to a Hebrew insti- 
tution — the Alexian Brothers Hospital and the 
Michael Reese Hospital. These were small 
structures when they were destroyed by Chi- 
cago's great fire, but they were rebuilt in impos- 
ing style. There is a picture of Clevenger 
taken in one of the medical wards on Belden 
Avenue, showing the freethinking doctor in the 
midst of Ambrosius and Arcadius and Aloy- 
sitjs — disease is non-sectarian, and tic douloureux 
is as painful in a follower of Loyola as in an 
admirer of Voltaire. Both hospitals treated 
the sick of all denominations, but the Alexian 
Brothers limited their services to males, and even 
the nurses were males, so Dr Byford never hur- 
ried there with ergot and forceps. 

Clevenger's experiences in hospitals for sick 
bodies were not as unfortunate as his adventures 
in asylums for sick minds, but man is a natural 

123 



124 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

politician, and the best institutions may be 
tainted by intriguery — it is said that even the 
Catholic Church is not wholly free from it. At 
an age when most men cling tenaciously to posi- 
tions, the quixotic Clevenger became an exile 
from hospitals. He ceased to be 'physician for 
nervous and mental diseases to Michael Reese 
and Alexian Brothers Hospitals,' and held no 
further hospital appointments : as a hospital offi- 
cial, Dr Clevenger was not what is called a suc- 
cess. However, he came out alive, which is more 
than can be said of certain other Chicago doctors 
who crossed the path of politicians — ask the 
ashes of Theodore B. Sachs! 

On various occasions Clevenger was a teacher. 
In 1883 he lectured on art anatomy at the Chi- 
cago Art Institute; in 1887 he lectured on 
physics at the Chicago College of Pharmacy; in 
1899 he lectured on medical jurisprudence at the 
Chicago College of Law. His connexion with 
these institutions was transient, as was also his 
lectureship on electro-diagnosis at the Electro- 
Medical School of Chicago: the faculty was nat- 
urally expected to boost medical electricity, but 
as Clevenger was more satirical than eulogis- 
tic, he was soon thrown out. 

In 1900 he was appointed professor of neurol J 



Dreaming and Drifting 125 

ogy and psychiatry at the Harvey Medical Col- 
lege, 'a night-school for day-workers.' It is evi- 
dent the management forgave him the trick he 
had played a few years previous when he was in- 
vited to speak at the inauguration exercises, and 
took advantage of the occasion to deliver a broad- 
side against the political control of asylums. 
Perhaps the head of the institution was secretly 
pleased, for she was Dr Frances Dickinson, a 
relative of Susan B. Anthony, and she pos- 
sessed some of that indomitable fighter's spirit. 
Besides being president, Dr Dickinson was also 
professor of ophthalmology. The vice-president 
was Dr Effie Lobdell, whom we had the pleas- 
ure of meeting at Kankakee. Dr Lobdell was' 
quite a personage by this time, being professor 
of clinical obstetrics and gynecology at Harvey 
Medical College, chief physician and surgeon of 
the Play fair School for Obstetrical Nurses, and 
obstetrician to the Cook County Hospital and 
to the Mary Thompson Hospital. 

Whatever may be said of the attempt to teach 
modern medicine by electric-light, Frances 
Dickinson must be given credit for two things: 
she published one of the neatest and most cir- 
cumspect of college catalogs, and she gathered 
around her an excellent faculty. While Clev- 



126 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

enger was on the staff, the bland Harris E. 
Santee tried to smile anatomy into the students, 
William D. Zoethout impressed the facts of 
physiology upon them with Teutonic thoroness, 
Bernard Fantus explained the mysteries of the 
materia medica, W. O. Krohn lectured on psy- 
chology, and the unique Byron Robinson taught 
gynecological and abdominal surgery. 

Altogether there were fifty members upon the 
faculty, and altho we believe all were useful, we 
are somewhat startled to find that Albert 
Schneider was listed as Professor of Physiolog- 
ical and Psychological Physiognomy. From the 
standpoint of alliteration this position is perfect, 
tho Professor Schneider has since left this field 
for the more practical pastures of pharmacy. 
Professor Clevenger lectured to the seniors, but 
he formed no lasting friendships with his pu- 
pils, and when the Harvey Medical College 
passed out in the night, his personal fortunes 
were unaffected. 

Several years later, Clevenger became con- 
nected with another night-school — the Chicago 
Hospital College of Medicine. This institution 
is almost a necropolis, for it specializes in old 
men who once amounted to something. The ca- 
reer of Samuel Anderson McWilliams ex- 



Dreaming and Drifting 127 

plains our ghoulful meaning. In his prime, Mc- 
Williams taught in a Class A school — the Col- 
lege of Physicians and Surgeons of Chicago, and 
his name, as one of the founders, may still be 
read on the corner-stone of the building. But 
when his beard was whitened and his mind a 
trifle dimmed, he became professor in a Class B 
school — the Bennett Medical College; again the 
years made inroads upon old Mc Williams, and 
when he was no longer acceptable at Bennett he 
was received at a Class C school — the Chicago 
Hospital College of Medicine. Here he re- 
mained until his death ; his career was a descent ; 
he could look backward and see that his pupils 
were occupying positions from which they had 
crowded him out — but the aged teacher had his 
wish: he died a professor — thanks to the Chi- 
cago Hospital College of Medicine. On the 
other hand, the mercurial Clevenger soon sev- 
ered his connexion with this college, altho for a 
few weeks he had held the exalted position of 
registrar. 

But was Clevenger ever connected with a 
'good school'? Almost. His Philadelphia 
friends wished him to accept the newly-estab- 
lished chair of biology at the University of Penn- 
sylvania, but the professor's salary of $500 a year 



128 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

was stationary, while Clevenger's family was 
growing, so he let the honor go. Then there was 
talk of Clevenger succeeding William Fran- 
cis Waugh at the Medico- Chirurgical College, 
but altho Professor Waugh eventually became 
a Chicagoan, Clevenger never became a Phila- 
delphian. At different times, Reeves Jackson 
and William E. Quine invited Clevenger to 
deliver courses of lectures at the College of 
Physicians and Surgeons, but as there was no 
mention of compensation, he did not accept. 
Every man has his own code of ethics: Cleven- 
ger would gladly have written an encyclopedia 
gratis, but it was against his principles to lecture 
except for cash. At one time he made plans to 
found a Biological School in Chicago, but was 
led to believe that he would be offered the chair 
of comparative anatomy and physiology at the 
University of Chicago. While waiting for the 
official announcement, Clevenger filled in the 
interval by delivering a Darwinistic lecture which 
so offended the Baptist authorities of the insti- 
tution that the old University of Chicago contin- 
ued its course without him. We may sum up 
the career of Clevenger as a pedagog by saying 
that it was not prosperous. 

In Clevenger's scrap-books are various clip- 



a i&^tyty s/fn*^. rfk~<^ <3*>-^ - 



LETTER FROM HORATIO C. WOOD 



129 



130 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

pings about the hardships that inventors have en- 
dured, and in some of his published books he re- 
lates instances of inventors who have been robbed 
of the fruits of their labors by shrewd and dis- 
honest financiers. This strain of talk indicates 
that Clevenger did not make a fortune from 
his inventions. 

Yet he had the inventor's knack. Ever since 
boyhood he was inventing something. A self- 
reeling hose cart, a rotary brush boot-blacking 
machine, a self-equating sun dial to give clock- 
time by inspection, a fac-simile telegraph, a 
method of measuring the pelvic capacity by 
means of two rubber bands and a foot of tape, 
a rubber strap for locating the fissure of Ro- 
lando,— these are some of his devices which are 
not on the market. 

Perhaps his most practical invention was a 
model of the brain, useful for demonstration pur- 
poses. Clevenger himself thinks so little of it 
that he refers to it nowhere, and has not even 
saved a sample, but we find that some of the 
leading neurologists of the time were anxious to 
secure copies. Horatio C. Wood is known 
mainly for his work in therapeutics, but in the 
eighties he produced a book on nervous diseases 



Dreaming and Drifting 131 

and taught neurology at the University of Penn- 
sylvania. He wrote to Clevenger : 'Have you 
a cast of the convolutions of the human brain 
for sale? If so, please state price.' Charles 
L. Dana, the neurologist of Cornell University, 
wrote: 'Will you kindly inform me whether I 
can now get one or two of the models of the brain 
devised by you?' William J. Morton's note 
has an added interest on account of its reference 
to the distinguished Hammond : 

Would you kindly send me whatever casts of the 
brain you have that you are willing to dispose of. I 
hope I am right in my recollection that Dr Hammond 
said you had made certain casts and that they could be 
bought. I should have said above, whatever separate 
casts, for I would like to see the simple copies first. 
But of the hemispheres (I have seen Dr Hammond's) 
I would like at least half a dozen for lecturing purposes 
in the new Post Graduate School. 

I hope I may have the pleasure of receiving a paper, 
short or long, for the Journal in some of the suc- 
ceeding numbers for 1883. You know how welcome 
to our pages a contribution from your pen will always 
be. 

Clevenger did not answer by return mail, for 
in his next communication Dr Morton says : 



132 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

I have just finished my course of lectures on the 
anatomy of the brain and will not now need the casts, 
but I am just as much obliged for your kind informa- 
tion about them, and fear at the same time that you 
underrate their value. 

We miss your medical pen, and trust it will be soon 
back at its old work — some good and trenchant speci- 
mens of which the Journal well knows. 

The Journal to which Dr Morton alludes is 
the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, for 
he was now editor of Jewell's transplanted 
quarterly. Unhappy Morton! His ancestors 
attended Harvard University when there were 
only five members in a class, and they fought in 
the revolution from the battle of Bunker Hill un- 
til tyranny was overthrown; he was born in the 
glorious year in which his father gave surgical 
anesthesia to the world, and he won an honor- 
able name for himself in neurology and electro- 
therapy, as practitioner and professor, investiga- 
tor and editor, but in later days he and Julian 
Hawthorne got mixed up in King Solomon's 
mines, and the gates of a federal penitentiary 
closed upon these talented sons of immorta^ 
fathers. Julian Hawthorne, being an author, 
eased his grief in a book, but the harrowing 
experience broke the physician's heart. 






Dreaming and Drifting 133 

The big invention of Clevenger's life was the 
Clevenger Book and Electric Typewriter. After 
looking upon the basket full of long grasshopper 
legs, the typebar levers, ratchets, pinions, wheels, 
cams, racks, cogs, springs, rods, all so clumsy 
and complicated, he decided that the typewriter 
required simplification. He studied the whole 
history of typewriters, from the first crude ma- 

Clevenger Book Typewriter 

for Books, Cards, Envelopes, Letters, Documents of all kinds — ANY SIZE. 




Write* on fiat surface. Doea mora and better work than other machine*, 



BOOK AND ELECTRIC TYPEWRITER CO., Park Ridge, III. 

S. V. CLEVENGER, Sec'y and Trews. 

chine of Queen Anne's time down to the majes- 
tic Remington, he waded thru all the patent office 
records in Washington — but nowhere did he find 
principles which satisfied him. At this period he 
expected to start a great sanitarium in Dela- 
ware, but he forgot that a sanitarium requires 
undivided attention. The sanitarium idea fiz- 
zled out, but he went on with his typewriter. An 
inventor is never discouraged — only a little 



134 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

longer and all will be well. Why complain if 
unreasonable neighbors whisper something about 
a crank? Is it not the fate of all great men 
to be misunderstood? Did not folks laugh at 
Fulton's Folly — until they scrambled into his 
steamboat? Why lament if the purse be empty 
today ? Only another screw to be tightened, only 
another wheel to be applied — and tomorrow 
fame and fortune will smile brightly. 

The day came when Clevenger patented his 
improved book typewriter — a machine that would 
never get out of alignment, for its working parts 
were so simple that they could be covered by a 
small cigar box. The machine could be put on 
the market for a few dollars — hundreds of thou- 
sands would be sold. Clevenger started a com- 
pany — shares of stock were ten dollars each. 

He published a statement to the effect that he 
now intended to make a business of every aspect 
of this matter, and to go into the psychology of 
all persons and things concerned therein, so that 
the gentry who live by stealing the work of oth- 
ers will find they have no chance to absorb this 
typewriter. Capitalists willing to float corpora- 
tions would be avoided as often unconscionable 
and liable to exploit stock improperly — not a 
drop of water would get into this stock. Who- 






Dreaming and Drifting 135 

ever subscribes and pays for a share of stock in 
this company at the par value of ten dollars per 
share will have his interests conscientiously 
guarded, and would, so Clevenger hoped, realize 
a fortune from the venture. Then came the in- 
evitable comparison : holders of ten dollar shares 
of telephone stock grew rich on the single share. 
In a vision he saw his typewriters working all 
over the land: cheap, easy to manipulate, inde- 
structible. 

Dreams, dreams, dreams, — frenzied faith of 
an old Don Quixote. Never has a human ear 
heard the clicking of the Clevenger typewriter. 
The company is not doing business, and the pat- 
ent will lie in the Patent Office in Washington 
— until it expires. 

An American does not consider his education 
complete until he has failed as an editor — have 
we not more periodicals than the rest of the world 
put together? Clevenger was an editor on va- 
rious occasions. While still at Chattanooga, Ten- 
nessee, he was city editor of the American Un- 
ion, but when that paper adopted southern prin- 
ciples, he founded The Unconditional in Harri- 
son, Hamilton County. As we look over its four 
small pages, the first entirely devoted to adver- 
tisements, the third given up to jokes and cases 



136 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

in chancery, the fourth exclusively occupied by 
sheriff sales, we wonder what was the purpose 
of such a newspaper, but perhaps the following 
letter written to Clevenger, in 1866, by John 
B. Brownlow — editor of The Whig at Knox- 
ville, and son of 'Fighting Parson' Brownlow, 
the Governor of Tennessee — may help to eluci- 
date the situation: 

Immediately upon seeing The Unconditional I or- 
dered it to be put on my exchange list. I am very 
glad you are publishing a true paper in Hamilton 
County. The miserable hermaphrodite concern at 
Chattanooga deserves opposition. I wish there was 
a loyal paper in every county in East Tennessee to 
strengthen the loyal party. If governed alone by self- 
ishness I would desire this, for if the loyal party of 
the state goes down, we all go down together. Nearly 
all the papers in the state are rebel, and this is the dis- 
advantage we labor under. I trust you will be suc- 
cessful. 

In spite of this wish, Clevenger was not suc- 
cessful — his subscribers were few and most of the 
few were in arrears — and as a result he went to 
Montana, and later to Dakota Territory where 
he became editor and half-owner of the Press and 
Dakotaian. Here too we notice his penchant for* 



Dreaming and Drifting 137 

supplying jocose information, of which the fol- 
lowing is an example : 

It is estimated that over 2,000 toes were frozen 
last winter in Minnesota, because the girls wouldn't ask 
their fellows in, but kept them standing at the gate. 

It may be mentioned that Clevenger paid 
$6,000 for his half -interest and sold it for $3,000 
— but that wasn't so funny. 

Not only did Clevenger fail as an editor, but 
his friends failed too. In 1880 John Michels 
founded Science, and edited it so ably that it at 
once became one of the leading scientific weeklies 
in the world. Clevenger's name was mentioned 
in the first volume a few times, and several of 
his contributions appeared in the second volume. 
Michels and Clevenger were on cordial terms, 
and Clevenger expected to write often for the 
journal, but Michels was such an admirable ed- 
itor he had no time to devote to the financial man- 
agement, and Science soon passed out of his 
hands. 

Six years after Science was established, Clev- 
enger had another opportunity to witness the 
dangers that beset an editor. For some time, 
B. F. Underwood and his wife Sarah, author- 
ess of Heroines of Freethought, had conducted 



138 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

The Index at Boston. A zinc merchant, Ed- 
ward C. Hegeler, — one of those rich men with 
ideas who likes to be surrounded by intellectual 
people — desired to found a liberal journal in the 
West, and he finally induced the Underwoods 
to abandon The Index, and come to Chicago. On 
the seventeenth of February, 1887, The Open 
Court made its appearance. It had none of the 
malice or the militancy that limited D. M. Ben- 
nett's Truth Seeker to a certain class, but num- 
bered among its contributors such men and 
women as John Burroughs, Thomas David- 
son, Felix Oswald, Moncure D. Conway, 
M. M. Trumbull, Edmund Montgomery, 
Frederick May Holland, E. D. Cope, Les- 
ter F. Ward, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, 
George Jacob Holyoake and Hypatia Brad- 
laugh Bonner. 

In the fifth number of the journal Clevenger 
saw a review of one of his own books, and after 
reading the two columns of intelligent praise he 
decided it was the best review he had seen, and 
he called upon the editor to express his thanks. 
Mr Underwood informed him that the review 
had been written by Dr Edmund Montgomery, 
who was then living in Texas. 

Montgomery was a Scotchman who had been 



Dreaming and Drifting 139 

brought up in Frankfurt, where he daily saw 
Schopenhauer pass with his poodle. He stud- 
ied under Helmholtz, and became acquainted 
with Feuerbach and Moleschott, and with the 
pupils of Schelling, Fichte and Hegel. He 
attended various German universities, receiving 
his M.D. at Wurzburg. Returning to England, 
he had a laboratory at the Zoological Gardens, 
where he often met and conversed with Darwin. 
Montgomery had accomplished the remarkable 
feat of reading Kant's Critique of Pure Reason 
five times, and then wrote a book himself in Ger- 
man to refute Kant's theory of knowledge. His 
volume in English, On the Formation of So- 
called Cells in Animal Bodies, was mentioned by 
Sir Richard Owen in the Anatomy of Verte- 
brates as 'an important contribution to the 
philosophy of physiology.' He busied himself 
with other researches which appeared in German 
and English technical journals, but ill-health 
caused him to come to Texas. 

When Montgomery's essay, Is Pantheism the 
Legitimate Outcome of Modem Science? was 
read before the Concord School of Philosophy, 
Boston was so astounded that such erudition 
could come out of Texas, that the following 
lines appeared in the Boston Record: 



140 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

A Texan floored the Concord crowd, 

Sing high! and sing ho! for the great southwest; 
He sent 'em a paper to read aloud, 

And 'twas done up in style by one of their best. 

The Texan he loaded his biggest gun 

With all the wise words he ever had seen, 

And he fired at long range with death-grim fun, 
And slew all the sages with his machine. 

He muddled the muddlers with brain-cracking lore, 
He went in so deep that his followers were drowned, 

But he swam out himself to the telluric shore, 
And crowed in his glee o'er the earthlings around. 

ENVOY. 

Oh Plato, dear Plato, come back from the past! 

And we'll forgive all that you e'er did to vex us, 
If you'll only arrange for a colony vast 

And whisk these philosophers all off to Texas. 

After Montgomery's review, Clevenger him- 
self became a frequent contributor to the Open 
Court, writing a plea for Volapuk and an attack 
on Christian Science, and various articles on psy- 
chiatry and monism. He rejoiced to find a me- 
dium where he could express certain views that 
he held — and he was paid for it too. 



Dreaming and Drifting 141 

It was too good to last — trouble was coming. 
Mr Hegeler had a private secretary, a doctor of 
philosophy, Paul Carus. Mr Hegeler had 
also a daughter named Mary. After Miss 
Mary Hegeler became Mrs Mary Carus, Mr 
Hegeler insisted that Dr Carus be one of the 
editors of the Open Court. From the stand- 
point of the Underwoods the request was un- 
reasonable, since they carefully edited every line 
of the paper and there was not room for another 
blue pencil. Accordingly, they refused to move 
up and let Carus sit on the editorial chair. But 
publisher Hegeler felt he had certain ideas to 
promulgate, and of course son-in-law Carus un- 
derstood these better than the strange Under- 
woods, and as Hegeler owned the paper, the 
Underwoods were compelled to resign. The 
first volume of the Open Court contained their 
salutatory and their valedictory. In touching 
but dignified words they bade farewell to their 
readers. They could not return to The Index, 
as it had been discontinued when they abandoned 
it; Mr Underwood was forced into some uncon- 
genial newspaper work, and soon lapsed into ob- 
scurity. Dr Carus immediately took charge of 
the Open Court, and has edited it with industry 
and ability ever since. He is well known for his 



142 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

many philosophical brochures. Dr Clevenger 
wrote a little under his regime, but he was not a 
favorite with the new judge of the Open Court, 
and soon ceased to contribute. 

There have been editors who have swayed the 
destinies of nations, but editorship was never 
profitable to Clevenger. 



VI 
BOOKS AND ESSAYS 

WE have now seen what a restless and ver- 
satile man was Clevenger: clerk, sol- 
dier, hotel keeper, probate judge, court commis- 
sioner, revenue collector, surveyor, telegrapher, 
engineer, pathologist, alienist, hospital superin- 
tendent, teacher, inventor, printer and editor. 
But tho he tried his hand at twenty trades, yet 
his credo could be summed up in the noble words 
of Lowell: 'I am a bookman.' His heart was 
in his manuscripts. 

He began to write for publication while in his 
teens, his earliest efforts being miniature articles 
in the 'Scientific American' for 1859. Similar 
technical sketches appeared later in 'Van Nos- 
trand's Engineering Magazine:' Instruments of 
Aluminium was written at a time when this metal 
was not much employed, and Clevenger thought 
its light weight would enable arcs to be made 
larger, and this would be an advantage in avoid- 
ing trigonometrical errors. American Car- 

143 



144 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

tography urged uniformity of methods in vari- 
ous government map -making departments. A 
Rheostat for Electric Battery appeared in the 
'American Practitioner.' Optical Appearances 
of Comets was published in the 'Sidereal Messen- 
ger,' and contained his theory that comets are 
mere reflections from nebular masses of vast me- 
teoric aggregations. Astronomy was one of his 
hobbies, as is evident from his correspondence 
with the star-men, particularly with the cele- 
brated Burnham of Lick Observatory. 

Clevenger's articles in 'Van Nostrand's En- 
gineering Magazine' appeared in 1874. After 
an author has written a few articles, he usually 
feels like producing a book. Your humble ar- 
ticle is buried among other men's writings, but 
a book comes into the world clothed in leather 
or fine cloth, with golden letters stamped across 
its back, and it stands upright upon the shelf. 
In 1874, when a United States Deputy Surveyor, 
Clevenger wrote his first book, A Treatise on 
Government Surveying, published by the Van 
Nostrand Company of New York. It is the 
only one of his works which has gone thru sev- 
eral editions, and from which the royalties were 
visible. We understand that it is still used by 
students and carried by engineers in the field — 



Books and Essays 145 

perhaps because Colonel I. N. Higbee, one of the 
oldest and most competent deputy surveyors in 
the Union, declared he knew several contracting 
individuals to fail in their tasks, because they 
did not possess the knowledge contained in Clev- 
enger's book. 

The volume was dedicated to the Honorable 
Columbus Delano, Secretary of the Interior,, 
'in memory of pleasant conversations ;' in his let- 
ter of acknowledgment, the Secretary wrote, 
'The fame of Clevenger lives in the enduring 
marbles his genius wrought; and I trust that his 
son. may achieve equal success as an author.' 

We have read this work for the same reason 
that Richard Le Gallienne read Grant Al- 
len's Force and Energy — because a copy was 
presented to us ; and we confess we know as much 
about surveying as poet Richard knows about 
physics. 

It is interesting to note that even in 1874 Clev- 
enger had begun his campaign against political 
corruption, for in the circulars advertising his 
book he inserted hints like these : 'There are sev- 
eral Surveyors-General who do not sell contracts 
— but they do not save $10,000 a year from a 
salary of $2,000.' 'Contractors are not always 



146 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

surveyors. Why not entrust our navy to poli- 
ticians' ? 

Five years later Clevenger was living in an- 
other atmosphere : he was an M.D., and spent his 
time at the dead-house of the county insane 
asylum, and in Professor Jewell's library — the 
most extensive neurological library in the West. 
The first result of his studies was an essay on 
Cerebral Topography, which was published Oc- 
tober, 1879, in the 'Journal of Nervous and Men- 
tal Disease.' The recent graduate must have 
been gratified to find an article by Weir 
Mitchell in the same issue. Clevenger's essay 
contained the names, synonyms, and localiza- 
tions of various portions of the human brain, 
based on an examination of the English, Italian, 
French and German literature, and on original 
studies of about one hundred brains post-mor- 
tem. It was a splendid beginning — another 
American neurologist was born. Burt G. 
Wilder read Clevenger's contribution, and find- 
ing the description of the sulcus occipitalis longi- 
tudinals inferior to be original, he named it Clev- 
enger's fissure. Strange to say, Clevenger 
himself insists that Ecker had previously de- 
scribed this inferior occipital fissure, but Wilder, 
who of course was familiar with Ecker's writ- 



Books and Essays 147 

ings, is our great nomenclaturist, and so Cleven- 
ger s fissure is found in the medical dictionaries 
unto this day. Thus in the year that he was 
granted his diploma, the name of Clevenger be- 
came an eponym in cerebral anatomy. 

In the next number of the magazine, January, 
1880, Clevenger reviewed Benedikt's Brains 
of Criminals, disagreeing with him decidedly, 
Clevenger's contention being that criminals had 
no special brain shape we could make out with 
present means any more than they had criminal 
peculiarities of nose, eyes, etc. Benedikt out- 
lombrosed Lombroso in his belief in the 'born 
criminal/ and as he did not hesitate to announce 
that he found the cerebellum in criminals uncov- 
ered, it is not odd that he was attacked by ra- 
tional neurologists. 

For the following number, which was the 
April issue, Clevenger contributed an article on 
The Sulcus of Rolando as an Index to the Intel- 
ligence of Animals. He took the position that 
this fissure was farther back in an ascending scale 
of intelligence, as the increased size of the fron- 
tal lobe pushed it backward; also that the 
medulla oblongata developed more rectangularly 
in bimana, the increase in size of the frontal lobe 
pushing the entire brain backward to form this 



148 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

right angle in proportion to the intelligence in- 
crease; as the basilar process accompanies this 
change, skulls can add this index to Camper's 
facial angle. 

In August of this year the American Associa- 
tion for the Advancement of Science held its 
meeting at Boston, and Clevenger journeyed, 
there. At this gathering he saw several notables 
with whose work he had long been familiar, but 
Clevenger did not come merely for the purpose 
of admiring others ; he had a paper of his own to 
read, the Plan of the Cerebro- Spinal Nervous 
System, and in October it was published in Jew- 
ell's journal. Here he suggested cerebral, 
homologies such as the cerebellum being formed 
from coalesced intervertebral ganglia: the Gas- 
serian ganglion was an intervertebral originally 
and other lobes in all mammals were originally 
developed from intervertebral ganglia, as arche- 
typal skull shows ancestral vertebral segment 
plan. 

Besides the 'Journal of Nervous and Mental 
Disease,' Clevenger wrote for other periodicals 
during 1880: he conducted a Saturday Science 
Column in the 'Chicago Tribune,' and he as- 
sisted E. C. Dudley in editing the first issue of 
the 'Chicago Medical Gazette,' later called the 



Boohs and Essays 149 

'Chicago Medical Review.' Dudley wanted a 
pathologist and a surgeon on his staff, and asked 
Clevenger to hunt up a couple of good men. 
Clevenger knew a foreigner who had recently 
arrived in Chicago and had a reputation in 
pathology, and he told Christian Fenger about 
the new journal, and the talented Dane agreed 
to write for it, tho he was probably not excited at 
the prospect, as he had already contributed to 
medical periodicals. But at the Cook County 
Hospital, Clevenger found a promising young 
interne, fresh from college, named Murphy, 
whom he persuaded to send surgical reports to 
the 'Review/ — and these were Dr Murphy's first 
contributions to medical journalism. But in the 
days when John B. Murphy became the sur- 
gical king of Chicago, Clevenger despised him 
for kneeling at an archbishop's feet to receive a 
knightship from the church which had perse- 
cuted science when science was weak. 

With the third number, Clevenger became 
editor of the department of Medical Physics, but 
characteristically enough, soon relinquished the 
task. For the March 'Chicago Medical Review,' 
he wrote Guide to Post-Mortem Examinations 
of the Brain, and in June contributed a brief 
communication on Laceration of Cervix Uteri, 



150 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

as a probable cause of recurring abortions, to 
which Editor Dudley appended this note: 

The history of the lesion as given in the case-books 
of the Woman's Hospital in the State of New York, 
in the private records of Dr Emmet, and in our own 
records, proves the correctness of the views above ex- 
pressed, altho, so far as we are aware, these views 
have not hitherto been specially published. 

Cleyenger contributed nothing further to 
gynecology, but young Dudley soon became 
professor of diseases of women in Clevenger's 
alma mater, and developed into Chicago's mas-, 
ter-gynecologist : for years his skill has corrected 
the mistakes of nature and the blunders of lesser 
surgeons. 

The November 'Chicago Medical Journal and 
Examiner/ — an important publication which had 
been founded in 1844 and was now edited byj 
Davis, Hyde and Brower, — contained Cleyen- 
ger's Cerebral Anatomy Simplified. Further- 
more, during the year he had read the first re- 
sults of his research work on the mercurials, to 
the Chicago Biological Society and to the Il- 
linois State Microscopical Society. Altogether, 
1880 was a fruitful year, and Cleyenger ac- 
quired 'standing.' 



Books and Essays 151 

During 1881 there were not many days dur- 
ing which the pen of Clevenger was dry. He 
wrote up his further researches with mercury, 
contributed Comparative Neurology to the Jan- 
uary-February 'American Naturalist/ edited by 
Edward Drinker Cope, and the July issue con- 
tained his lecture on the Origin and Descent of 
the Human Brain, showing the development of 
lobes from ganglia formed on back of spinal cord. 
This address had been read in February before 
the Chicago Academy of Sciences. 

On March 11, 1881, he spoke on Nerve Cells 
and Their Function before the Illinois State 
Microscopical Society, and made it the subject 
of his American Neurological Association thesis. 
It appeared in abstract in the 'Chicago Medical 
Review,' but to Clevenger's chagrin, was full of 
typographical errors. However, such accidents 
are liable to occur in the best-conducted printer- 
ies. No doubt the proofreaders of the Bible are 
conscientious men, and yet one edition appeared 
in London with the 'not' omitted from the sev- 
enth commandment. In this paper he advanced 
his histogenetic nerve-cell theory, claiming that 
the nerve-fibre and not the nerve-cell is the first 
to arise in forms above the protozoa, for in noto- 
chordal animals an elaborate system of nerves 



152 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

exists without a nerve-cell being present. He 
took the ground that histogenesis was the main 
function of the nerve-cell, the axis cylinder being 
produced from the cell. 

His paper, Schmidt on Yellow Fever, which 
he read in April before the Chicago Biological 
Society, appeared in the May 'Chicago Medical 
Journal and Examiner.' H. D. Schmidt of 
New Orleans was crippled with rheumatoid 
arthritis, but when it settled in his lower limbs 
and left his hands free, he was a master of mi- 
nute injections, and could make sections and 
drawings that won the admiration of men like 
Nott, Leidy, Jewell, Hammond, Spitzka, 
Roswell Park, Lester Curtis and E. C. Se- 
guin. Poor Schmidt! he announced his discov- 
ery of the biliary capillaries as the commence- 
ment of the hepatic duct, in the 'American Jour- 
nal of Medical Sciences/ a generation before 
Clevenger thought of studying medicine, and 
now Clevenger was trying to push his books, so 
Schmidt would have a few dollars for himself 
and family. Schmidt's work on the histol- 
ogy of the human liver, on the origin and 
development of the colored blood corpus- 
cles in man, on the construction of the double- 
bordered nerve fibre, on the development of 



Boohs and Essays 153 

the smaller vessels in the human embryo, on 
the structure and function of the ganglionic bod- 
ies of the cerebro-spinal axis, on the pathological 
anatomy of leprosy, and his microtome and in- 
jector, placed him in the forefront of American 
microscopists, and much of his work was pub- 
lished in England by the Royal Microscopical 
Society of London. His masterpiece, however, 
was his work on the Pathology and Treatment 
of Yellow Fever — but the sting of a mosquito 
antiquated the labors of a life-time. 

More trouble was in store for the unhappy 
Schmidt: a year after Clevenger's eulogy, 
Koch proclaimed his discovery of the tubercle 
bacillus, but in America 'Koch's bugs' excited 
more skepticism than enthusiasm — read George 
F. Shrady's editorial of unbelief in the 'Medical 
Record.' And Schmidt, in the 'Chicago Med- 
ical Journal and Examiner' had the audacity to 
state that what Koch imagined were bacilli were 
only crystals. In this year Darwin passed 
away, but his mantle of gentleness did not de- 
scend upon Koch. In scathing terms Koch — 
who had all the truth on his side — answered his 
American critics, and was especially ironical with 
Schmidt. The tone of his reply is indicated 
in these lines : 



154 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

Schmidt however is considered in America to be a 
great microscopist, and what Schmidt does not see no 
one else can possibly see. It could, therefore, be no 
bacilli that the European microscopists saw. The point 
then is to discover what sort of things they are. This, 
too, the great microscopist Schmidt very soon dis- 
covered. They are fat crystals, of course. 

But every scientist has his 'cupboard of mis- 
takes,' — whether he acknowledges it or not. Ten 
years later Koch himself published certain 
statements which time has not upheld. As for 
Schmidt, we can write his epitaph in a few 
words : applauded by scientists and neglected by 
society, he acquired knowledge instead of 
money, and died without being able to pay his 
own funeral expenses. He was a beggar with 
an international reputation. 

Some writers adopt the policy of praising 
everyone, and as everyone likes to be praised, it 
is a policy that pays. But Clevenger was more 
of a 'knocker' than a 'booster.' Toward the end 
of the year, in his vice-presidential address before 
the Chicago Electrical Society, on Medical Elec- 
tricity, which appeared in the November 'Chi- 
cago Medical Journal and Examiner,' he de- 
nounced contemporary electrotherapy — some- 
what as pharmacotherapy is arraigned today. 



Books and Essays 155 

G. M. Beard and A. D. Rockwell had pub- 
lished a large book on the subject, which Clev- 
enger singled out for attack, tho he put all the 
blame on Beard, whom he called an 'educated 
quack/ and accused of Voluminous nonsense,' 
and of 'show, pretense, glitter, and owlishness,' 
while he explained that 'the junior partner of the 
firm became disgusted with the trickiness of the 
senior, and dissolved the partnership.' Beard — 
famous for his discovery of neurasthenia — made 
no reply, but Rockwell did not desire Cleven- 
ger's exemption, and publicly denied that he had 
any falling out with Beard. Reginald Heber 
Fitz, while thanking Clevenger for a reprint, 
explained that he had begun a thankless task if 
he intended rapidly to reform the profession and 
that most Bostonians had renounced the public 
calling of names, as personal abuse never digni- 
fies the profession of medicine. Dr Fitz added 
that he took the liberty of making this criticism 
from the interest he had in Clevenger's progress 
and from the somewhat confidential relation in 
which Clevenger placed him early in his medical 
career. 

On the other hand, Spitzka approved of 
Clevenger's animadversions — because he was 
not a Bostonian, and because he agreed with what 



156 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

Cleyenger had written. It seems, however, that 
Clevenger was a trifle hasty with his hammer, 
for within a decade he himself announced a pos- 
sible electrical treatment for cholera. 

In this year Clevenger became a contributor 
to John Michel's 'Science,' his first article be- 
ing his deduction that love is hunger : he pointed 
out that as monads eat each other and then fis- 
sion reproduction occurs, this may be extended to 
all animal life as indicating that the sexual act 
is an expression of hunger and that love is de- 
rived from hunger. Naturally, this theory of 
the common origin and fusion of the sexual and 
ingestive act, with the demonstration that in some 
forms of life the sexual act is identical with eat- 
ing, attracted considerable attention. We may 
add that in the light of this theory, the common 
expression of lovers, you look sweet enough to 
eat,' becomes comprehensible. 

To 'Science,' Clevenger contributed also his 
theory that the thymus and thyroid are rudimen- 
tary gills. If this is true it might throw some 
light on the perplexing subject of goitre, but 
alas! Clevenger never exhibited any interest in 
proving his theories. He was most assiduous in 
hatching them, but neglected them as soon as 
they came into the world. We doubt if many 



Books and Essays 157 

scientists during 1881 threw so many brilliant 
and unproved hypotheses into the field as Sho- 
bal Vail Clevenger. 

In the following year Clevenger's name ap- 
peared seldom in print, but he was preparing sev- 
eral of the articles which were published in 1883 
— the Dunning year. A complete bibliography 
of his writings up to this date, and a complimen- 
tary notice of the author, appeared in the July 
4 Chicago Medical Journal and Examiner.' This 
was inserted by James Nevins Hyde, the well- 
known professor of dermatology at Rush Med- 
ical College ; Davis was no longer one of the ed- 
itors, as he was now editing the first volume of the 
'Journal of the American Medical Association.' 

That Clevenger already ranked with the lead- 
ers of the profession is apparent from a notice 
which appeared in the 'American Journal of 
Neurology and Psychiatry,' a quarterly edited 
by Edward Charles Spitzka, Langdon Car- 
ter Gray, and T. A. McBride. In discussing 
their prospects for the coming year, the editors 
stated : 

In addition, our well-known contributors, S. Weir 
Mitchell, J. S. Jewell, Roberts Bartholow, S. 
V. Clevenger, J. G. Kiernan, H. M. Bannister, V. 
P. Gibney, D. R. Brower, Burt G. Wilder and nu- 



158 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

merous others, will continue to favor us with the re- 
sults of their researches from time to time. 

Clevenger contributed twice to the 'American 
Journal of Neurology and Psychiatry' during 
1883: a report on the Recent Appearances Ob- 
served Post Mortem in a Case of Delirium Grave, 
in August, and Insanity in Children, in Novem- 
ber. 

The year 1884 opened auspiciously for Clev- 
enger, for the January 'American Naturalist* 
contained his Disadvantages of the Upright Po- 
sition. He had read it before the University 
Club of Chicago in 1882, and before the Phila- 
delphia Academy of Natural Sciences in 1883. 
The distribution of valves in the veins had long 
been a standard puzzle, and Clevenger was one 
of those who determined to solve it. It was plain 
enough, from the teleological standpoint, why 
we should have valves in the veins of the arms 
and legs: obviously to assist the return of blood 
to the heart against gravitation. But what 
earthly use, wondered Clevenger, has a man for 
valves in the intercostal veins which carry blood 
almost horizontally backward to the azygos 
veins? When recumbent, these veins are an ac- 
tual detriment to the free flow of blood. The 
inferior thyroid veins which drop their blood 






Books and Essays 159 

into the innominate are obstructed by valves at 
their junction. Two pairs of valves are situated 
in the external jugular and another pair in the 
internal jugular, but in recognition of their use- 
lessness they do not prevent regurgitation of 
blood nor liquids from passing upwards. Fur- 
thermore, valves are absent from the parts where 
they are most needed, such as in the venae cavae, 
spinal, iliac, hemorrhoidal and portal. 

Who could answer this riddle? Not any of 
the standard text-books of the time, but the light 
came to Clevenger. He placed man upon 'all 
fours/ and the law governing the presence and 
absence of valves became at once apparent : dor- 
sad veins are valved ; cephalad, ventrad and cau- 
dad veins have no valves. This discovery rep- 
resents Clevenger's most important contribu- 
tion to science. It was another fact for Darwin- 
ism. 

Clevenger explained that valves would be out 
of place in the hemorrhoidal veins of quadrupeds, 
but to their absence in man many a life has been 
and will be sacrificed, to say nothing of the dis- 
comfort and distress occasioned by the engorge- 
ment known as piles, which the presence of 
valves in these veins would obviate. Besides the 
law of valved and unvalved veins, Clevenger 



160 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

exposed other drawbacks of the upright posi- 
tion: 

He pointed out that a noticeable departure 
from the rule obtaining in the vascular system 
of mammalia also occurs in the exposed situation 
of the femoral artery in man. The arteries lie 
deeper than the veins or are otherwise protected 
for the purpose, the teleologists would argue, of 
preventing hemorrhage by superficial cuts. 
From the evolutionary standpoint it would ap- 
pear that only animals with deeply-placed ar- 
teries would survive and transmit their peculiari- 
ties to their offspring, as the ordinary abrasions 
to which all animals are subject, together with 
their fierce onslaughts upon one another, would 
tend to kill off animals with superficially located 
arteries. But when man assumed the upright 
posture, the femoral artery, instead of being 
placed out of reach on the inner part of the, 
thigh, became exposed, and were it not that this 
defect is nearly fully atoned for by his ability 
to protect the exposed artery in ways the brute 
could not, he too would have become extinct. 
Even as it is, this aberration is a fruitful cause of 
trouble and death. 

Clevenger next pointed out that another dis- 
advantage which occurs in the upright position 



Books and Essays 161 

of man is his greater liability to inguinal hernia : 
Quadrupeds have the main weight of abdominal 
viscera supported by ribs and strong pectoral and 
abdominal muscles. The weakest part of the lat- 
ter group of muscles is in the region of Poupart's 
ligament, above the groin. Inguinal hernia is 
rare in other vertebrates because this weak part 
is relieved of the visceral stress, but about twenty 
per cent of the human family are hernia suffer- 
ers, and strangulated hernia frequently occasions 
death. 

He then showed the obstetric peril of stand- 
ing erect: From marsupialia to lemuridse the 
box-shape pelvis persists, but with the wedge- 
shape induced in man a remarkable phenomenon 
also occurs in the increased size of the fetal head 
in disproportion to the contraction of the pelvic 
outlet. While the marsupial head is about one- 
sixth the size of the smallest part of the parturi- 
ent bony canal, the moment we pass to erect ani- 
mals the greater relative increase is there in the 
cranial size with coexisting decrease in the area 
of the outlet. This altered condition of things 
has caused the death of millions of otherwise 
perfectly healthy and well-formed mothers and 
children. If we are to believe, continued Clev- 
enger, that for our original sin the pangs of 



162 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

labor at term were increased, and also believe in 
the disproportionate contraction of the pelvic 
space being an efficient cause of the same diffi- 
culties of parturition, the logical inference is in- 
evitable that man's original sin consisted in his 
getting upon his hind legs. 

Clevenger's star-essay brought him a sugges- 
tive letter from Lawrence University — now re- 
duced to Lawrence College — of Appleton, Wis- 
consin, written by a Frank Cramer who is un- 
known to us, but who brings upon the scene the,' 
geologist and evolutionist Le Conte, one of the 
most distinguished of American naturalists: 

In a recent correspondence with Prof. Joseph Le 
Conte, he called my attention to the demonstrative ar- 
gument for evolution that may be drawn from the dis- 
tribution of the valves in the veins of the human body ; 
and said he thought the point was first brought out by 
Dr Clevenger. 

I have been seeking a number of typical cases of 
biological investigations that will demonstrate the 
power of the theory of evolution to direct the investi- 
gator, or in other words, to give him the ability to fore- 
see what ought to be looked for and what will probably 
be found. Investigators are now largely occupied in 
following out the suggestions of the theory and veri- 
fying the deductions that flow from it, but while every 



Books and Essays 163 

new discovery nowadays strengthens the theory, I do 
not know of any effort to bring together those that 
were foreseen as deductions of the theory, as Jevons 
has so beautifully done for some of the other sciences. 

A good type of the kind of discovery to which I 
refer is given by some of Ehrenberg's work. From 
a knowledge of the structure of the carpus in other 
animals arose the deduction that if the theory of man's 
descent was the true one, the os centrale or some trace 
of it ought to be found in the wrist of the human em- 
bryo. Following this deduction, he made the inves- 
tigation and found what he looked for; and Wieder- 
sheim pronounces it one of the greatest triumphs of 
the theory in the whole field of morphology. 

If it will not be too great an annoyance to you, will 
you please give me the order in which the facts and 
deduction came to you? Did the theory suggest search 
for the facts ? or did you know the facts first and after- 
wards connect them with the theory? Or did parts of 
the facts and the theory together lead you to the de- 
duction and its verification by farther research? 

What I desire, as you will readily see, is the logical 
relation which the facts and the theory bore to each 
other in your own mind. 

A reply directly from you will put me under lasting 
obligations, and I shall await it with great interest. 

Cleyenger believed that the Disadvantages 
of the Upright Position, when originally deliv- 



164 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

ered before the University Club of Chicago, had 
the additional disadvantage of costing him the 
proffered chair of comparative anatomy and 
physiology at the University of Chicago. To the 
printed essay he appended a foot-note, directing 
attention to the institution's antagonism to Dar- 
winism, flaying it as a tottering university — a 
type of the school which was responsible for East- 
ern colleges being filled with Western youth — 
and calmly predicting that it would be five hun- 
dred years before abstract science could be sup- 
ported in Chicago. 

Edson S. Bastin, who was the professor of 
botany, but incidentally filled all the other scien- 
tific chairs in the University of Chicago, may 
not have cared to prophesy five hundred years 
ahead, but he could testify that abstract science 
in Chicago was not supporting him in the year 
1884, for he was then engaged in suing the uni- 
versity for his salary. He wrote to Clevenger, 
who was then pathologist at Dunning: 

I notice the January 'Naturalist' has your Disad- 
vantages of the Upright Position, with a blast that 
will awaken the sleepers, in the form of a foot-note at 
the end. President Anderson will doubtless think hard 
of me if the article meets his eye, but since Dr Garrison 
and I have declared war on the institution by bringing 



Books and Essays 165 

suit against it for back pay, your statements will only 
add zest to the contest. I have suffered enough injus- 
tice at the hands of that institution, and I think no 
harm will now be done if one great Baptist bubble be 
pricked. This sub rosa, however. 

I congratulate you on your valuable article, and 
thank you personally for the kindly mention you have 
made of me. 

I am sorry I so seldom meet you this year. I very 
much miss the pleasant talks we were accustomed to 
have together. Do call on me when you come into the 
city. 

In the same month in which the Disadvantages 
appeared in the 'American Naturalist,' Cleven- 
ger's Paretic Dementia in Females appeared in 
the 'Alienist and Neurologist,' the quarterly 
founded and so long edited by Charles Ham- 
ilton Hughes, of St Louis. In this volume of 
the 'Alienist and Neurologist/ M. J. Madigan 
published a lengthy treatise on Was Guiteau In- 
sane? He answered the question in the affirma- 
tive, and in summing up the most eminent neu- 
rologists, in America and abroad, who adopted a 
similar view, he included the name of Clevenger. 

In February, in the 'Chicago Medical Journal 
and Examiner,' Clevenger began a series of 
Clinical and Pathological Reports of Cases of 



166 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

Insanity, taken from his records at Dunning. 
The first case he reported was that of a Swede 
who was suffering from melancholia due to lead 
poisoning. Clevenger ended his remarks with 
the suggestion, 'Sanitary boards would do well 
to examine into the conduct of lead factories, and 
insist upon proper measures being adopted to 
protect workmen against plumbic toxemia.' 
Thirty-five years have passed since these words 
were written, but the slaughter is still unabated. 
On the battlefields, lead kills men in time of war, 
but in the industries, lead kills men — and women 
— during war and peace alike. 

In the April report, he used the word paranoia 
— the first time that this now-familiar term was 
employed on this side of the Atlantic. This 
paper contained his deduction that females 
largely inherit their insanity, while males largely 
acquire theirs. We quote Clevenger's original 
reference to paranoia: 

In former clinical reports I mentioned monomania as 
a misnomer, and suggested that a name conveying the 
idea of logical perversion would be more appropriate 
for this disorder. Since then I have encountered the 
term paranoia, as used by Giuseppe Amadei and Silvio 
Tonnini, for this form of insanity, in the November, 
1883, leading article of the 'Archivio Italiano per le 




CHARLES HAMILTON HUGHES 



Books and Essays 167 

Malattie Nervose e Alienazoni Mentali,' the organ of 
the Italian Societa Freniatrica, and in the expectation 
that it will come into general use instead of the word 
which has caused so much misunderstanding, have 
adopted it. 

Clevenger concluded this strenuous year with 
a monograph on Nervous and Mental Physics, in 
the August and November 'American Journal of 
Neurology and Psychiatry.' 

The outstanding event of 1885 was the appear- 
ance of Clevenger's second book, Comparative 
Physiology and Psychology, published by Jan- 
sen, McClurg & Company, of Chicago. This 
thoughtful and technical production was ar- 
ranged for the printer during the turmoil at the 
Dunning Asylum, tho most of the ideas were 
taken from his earlier writings. Like the true 
monist that he was, he affirmed that mind must 
be regarded as a mechanism and that an admis- 
sion of the supernatural ends investigation. 
Starting with the immortal ameba, he traced 
objectively the evolution of the human brain. 
Clevenger's Comparative Physiology and Psy- 
chology is a book unmarred by a superstition; 
theology has no place here, teleology is flouted, 
and metaphysics is defined as 'lunar politics ;' the 



168 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

spirit of science is evoked in these pages: the 
author lived among Mike McDonald's hench^ 
men when he prepared this volume for the press, 
but he stood where Ernest Haeckel stands, 
breathing the air of unadulterated rationalism. 

In January, 1886, he contributed Neurological 
Notes, from the Alexian Brothers Hospital, to 
the 'Western Medical Reporter.' In February, 
his Contribution to Neurological Therapeutics 
appeared in the 'Journal of Nervous and Mental 
Disease.' This paper was a plea for the employ- 
ment of secale cornutum in neurology; even in 
epilepsy, he preferred ergot to the bromides. As 
a rule, Clevenger named the bromides only to 
condemn them — in which respect he differed 
from Beard who declared the bromides a specific 
ranking with opium, quinine and electricity. 
Jewell had been unable to make his 'Journal 
of Nervous and Mental Disease,' pay expenses, 
and it was edited by W. J. Morton from 1882 to 
1885, but was now piloted by Bernard Sachs, 
under whose direction it was transformed from a 
quarterly to a monthly. 

The 'Journal of the American Medical Asso- 
ciation,' founded in 1883, was edited by Nathan 
Smith Davis, who had left the 'Chicago Medical 
Journal and Examiner' for that purpose; in the 



Books and Essays 169 

second volume, Clevenger's name appeared 
among the editorial items: 

Dr Glevenger, of this city, suggests as a ready 
means of ascertaining the existence and locations of 
small abrasions, needing a touch of the caustic be- 
fore holding a post-mortem examination, the holding 
of the hands over strong aqua ammonia for a moment, 
when the smarting will quickly reveal all the sensitive 
or abraded places, however minute. 

There were further references to him in this 
periodical, but his first contribution to the 'Jour- 
nal of the American Medical Association' oc- 
curred during 1887, when his Jurisprudence of 
Nervous and Mental Disease, which he had read 
before the jurisprudence section of the American 
Medical Association, appeared in the November 
issue. 

The 'American Naturalist' of July, 1888, con- 
tained Clevenger's Cerebrology and the possible 
something in Phrenology, explaining the few 
truths in old phrenology and the reasons for cere- 
brology taking the place of fallacious skull read- 
ing. In 1873 Clevenger had paid twenty-five 
dollars to the self-styled Professor O. S. Fowler, 
for a phrenological reading, which is still pre- 
served. Fifteen years later, the scientific Clev- 



170 The ID on Quixote of Psychiatry 

enger returned a fitting answer to this ignorant 
and pretentious charlatan who was never brought 
to justice. 

In 1886, the * American Lithographer* had 
published the lectures which Cleyenger de- 
livered at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, 
in the capacity of instructor of artistic anatomy. 
This series of discourses is interesting as an at- 
tempt to bring the evolutionary doctrine into the 
art student's domain, and the class certainly 
heard more of Darwin and Spencer than of 
Raphael and Joshua Reynolds. Clevenger 
endeavored to show the relationship that exists 
between science and the arts, and he pointed out 
certain errors that famous artists made because 
of their unf amiliarity with anatomy and physics. 
It was characteristic of the man that he ter- 
minated his course with an adjuration to drop the 
outworn Joves and Venuses, and represent mod- 
ern conditions. Like an exhortation from 
Kropotkin's fiery pamphlet, An Appeal to the 
Young, is Clevenger's concluding paragraph: 

There exist prison brutalities for you to expose. 
Charles Reade attempted this in Never Too Late to 
Mend, and in his Hard Cash he gave accounts of insane 
asylum atrocities. Such works as his and Charles 
Dickens' tales of Dotheboys Hall have done some- 



Books and Essays 171 

thing toward instituting reforms, but there is still an 
immense amount of labor to be done. I have been per- 
sonally made aware of the hideous management of 
county insane asylums by bar-keeper politicians, and 
believe that were the artist to bring the real state of 
things to public view the appeal to humanity would be 
more effective than thru rhetoric or 'investigations' in- 
tended to exculpate the offender and hide the truth. 

After this series had been printed in the maga- 
zine, arrangements were made to bring it out 
in book-form, under the title, Lectures on Artis- 
tic Anatomy. Illustrations were secured, and 
the pages were electrotyped. Most appropri- 
ately the volume was consecrated to the memory 
of his father, and the dedicatory page quoted the 
beautiful lines that Boston's uncrowned ruler, 
Edward Everett, addressed to the sculptor on 
receiving the bust for which he had sat: 

Time, care and sickness bend the frame 
Back to the dust from whence it came; 
The blooming cheek, the sparkling eye 
In mournful ruins soon must lie; 
The pride of form, the charm of grace 
Must fade away, nor leave a trace. 

They shall not fade; for Art can raise 
A counterpart that ne'er decays : 



172 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

Time, care and sickness strive in vain 
The power of genius to restrain. 

Thou, Ceevenger, from lifeless clay 
Canst mould what ne'er shall fade away, 
Fashion in stone that cannot die, 
The breathing lip, the speaking eye; 
And while frail nature sinks to dust, 
Create the all but living bust. 

Everything seemed in readiness for the publi- 
cation, but certain parties concerned in the ven- 
ture were guilty of delay, and this dilatoriness 
caused others to retreat, and the plates were sent 
to another publisher, and then to still another 
who kept them a twelvemonth, and finally 
shipped them to a firm in Chicago where they 
were burnt in 1888 in a printing-house fire. So 
nothing now remains of the work except a soli- 
tary dummy bound in boards, and we are justi- 
fied in claiming that the Lectures on Artistic 
Anatomy is one of the rarest volumes in the 
world. 

But Clevengee was already roaming in fields 
far removed from the Chicago Art Institute. 
He was a student of railways — he was studying 
those vague and ambiguous injuries to the nerv- 
ous system, often received in railway accidents, 






Books and Essays 173 

in which the anatomical changes in the spinal 
column are either absent, indefinite, or undemon- 
strable, but which leave the victim a neurasthenic 
wreck. The 'railway spine' had been discovered 
in England by John Eric Erichsen, who was 
born in Copenhagen — and certain Englishmen 
heartily wished he had remained in his native 
land, whether there is something rotten in Den- 
mark or not. But Erichsen matriculated at 
the University College of London, and eventu- 
ally became professor in that institution, — where 
he taught Lister — winning much admiration by 
his lectures and clinical work. He was president 
of the College of Surgeons, and of the Royal 
Medical and Chirurgical Society, and after beingj 
surgeon-extraordinary to Queen Victoria, was 
created a baronet. His Science and Art of 
Surgery passed thru several editions, and Erich- 
sen is counted among the makers of modern 
surgery. 

His Concussion of the Spine made his name a 
storm-center, as the corporations naturally took 
the ground that the owners of the railway spine 
were simply shamming. Herbert W. Page 
wrote a volume to prove that the railway spine 
was a myth, but the enormous sums which Eng- 
lish juries awarded the plaintiffs were exceed- 



174 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

ingly substantial, and involved the opposing 
physicians in the bitterest acrimony. Eleven 
million dollars in damages, within five years, for ( 
a new disease, cannot be doled out with a smile. 

The warfare extended across the Atlantic, and 
in the eighties Spitzka wrote on Spinal Injuries 
as a Basis of Litigation, and J. J. Putnam and 
G. L. Walton pointed out the hysterical nature 
of the malady. Clevengeb, then attacked the 
problem ; moderation was never his middle name, 
and he became Erichsen's warmest advocate. 
In 1889, the F. A. Davis Company of Phila- 
delphia, brought out Clevenger's Spinal Con- 
cussion, 'surgically considered as a cause of 
spinal injury, and neurologically restricted to a 
certain symptom group, for which is suggested 
the designation Erichsens disease, as one form of 
the traumatic neuroses,' — this being the first time 
that concussion of the spine was called Erichsen's 
disease. 

Clevenger reviewed and analysed the available 
literature on the subject, and then worked out his 
own theory that injury to the sympathetic nerve 
fibrils between the spinal cord and anterior sym- 
pathetic spinal ganglia accounted for much of, 
the phenomena in this traumatic neurosis. 

To find concussion of the spine regarded as a 



Books and Essays 175 

clinical entity, and his own name eponymic, was 
naturally agreeable to Sir John Eric Erichsen, 
and he sent Ceevenger this cordial letter: 

Pray accept my best thanks for the copy of your 
work on Spinal Concussion which I have just received 
from your publishers. The subject seems to be most 
admirably and exhaustively treated by you. 

I assure you that I feel much gratified and very 
highly flattered by having my name appended by you 
to the group of symptoms — so very characteristic and 
unmistakable when taken in the concrete — which I be- 
lieve I was the first to describe, which results from that 
peculiar form of spinal injury now recognized under 
the term of 'Spinal Concussion.' 

Nearly a quarter of a century has passed since I 
first wrote on the subject, and it is a matter of sin- 
cere gratification to me to find that the views I then 
entertained, and the opinions I gave utterance to, 
have in great measure been accepted by such distin- 
guished neurologists as yourself, Erb and others. 

Altho the mere phrase, 'spinal concussion,' was 
provocative of ire, Cuevenger aroused a little 
extra animosity by such cogitations as the fol- 
lowing : 

It is sad to reflect, however, that the majority of 
medical men in our country have never seen a human 



176 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

spinal cord and would not recognize one if they did see 
it. 

Clevenger's Spinal Concussion was the signal 
for a renewal of the battle: followers rallied to 
his defence and pronounced his theory the most 
plausible that had yet appeared, while it was the 
vociferous contention of his opponents that 
Erichsen's disease should be named 'blackmailer's 
disease,' as the litigants were speedily cured upon 
receipt of damages. 

The spread of periodical literature in the nine- 
teenth century put an end to the importance of 
the pamphlet, but 'railway spine' had its pam- 
phleteer in Dr G. M. Dewey, of Keytesville, 
Missouri. From his eight-page lampoon we cite 
these passages: 

A new disease to trouble men 

Has come to light thru Emchsen; 

Who ever heard, before his time, 

Of such complaint as 'railway spine'? 

It was the purpose of the Lord 

To save from harm the spinal cord. 

Protection for the cord was made 

Before a railway track was laid. 

Enclosed within a solid case, 

It seemed secure for all the race; 



CUUj tf£ erf ******"* ^f^ 

UtZfrtfu^ for fotuAU^t*** 

LETTER FROM JOHN ERIC ERICHSEK 




177 



178 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

A bony process on each side, 
No evil from it could betide; 
An osseous column from behind 
In close proximity we find; 
In front a solid fort we see 
The bodies of the vertebrae ; 
To make the cord still more secure, 
From shock and violence insure, 
The spine was made of many cones, 
With cartilage between the bones ; 
A great success this would have been, 
But for John Eric Erichsen; 
But ever since he wrote his book, 
The spinal cord is getting shook, 
And scarce a term of court goes by, 
That does not have a case to try. 
The slightest bruise, the merest jar, 
If gotten on a railway car, 
Is sure to end in course of time 
In a concussion of the spine. . . . 

There seems to be an inclination 
In men to rob a corporation. 
So common is this thing of late 
That stealing seems legitimate. . . . 
The damage by the jury set, 
Attorneys half the boodle get. . . . 
No ante, or postmortem sign, 
Can diagnose a 'railway spine ;' 



Books and Essays 179 

The microscope is sought in vain 
The dubious symptoms to explain; 
Subjective signs, if signs at all — 
An open door for fraud for all. 
Away with fairness, truth and skill, 
While men malinger at their will. 
What ean be done, what can avail, 
In shock from the pernicious rail? 
Of antiseptics, none are sure 
To even make a transient cure; 
Nerve tonics, very often tried, 
Failing, have all been laid aside; 
Neurosthenics without name, 
Have not relieved a single pain; 
The iodides, when in some doubt, 
Will often help a doctor out; 
Have not, up to the present time, 
Relieved a case of 'railway spine;' 
One remedy that never fails, 
In shocks from the pernicious rails; 
In all conditions it is sure 
To make a quick, a speedy cure; 
Specifics may be flaunted at, 
And much of charlatanry smack; 
But greenbacks have not failed thus far 
To heal the direct railway jar. 

Of late there's sprung some Western men 
Who may eclipse John Erichsen; 



180 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

Chicago has produced a man 
Who now stands foremost in the van ; 
Clevenger has at last found out 
The great morbific cause, no doubt; 
While on the gentle sleeper rocked, 
The sympathetic nerve gets shocked; 
He puts this theory in his book, 
Where all may see it if they look; 
And every pain that flesh is heir 
Is put down as a symptom there. 
The book was writ beyond a doubt 
To help the rascal plaintiffs out. 
The writer seems in quite a rage 
To counteract the views of Page; 
The only thing he claims as new 
Is the great sympathetic view. 
The ganglions spend all their time 
In getting up a 'railway spine;' 
Since this new function they have got, 
Against the cord they daily plot. 
These writers on the record go 
For what they think, not what they know. 
The cord was safe up to the time 
John Eric made the 'railway spine;' 
Now every day some fellows get 
Their sympathetic nerves upset, 
And to the law in haste appeal, 
Where juries will condone the steal. 






Books and Essays 181 

The 'Alienist and Neurologist/ for July, 1890, 
contained Clevenger's Infant Prodigy, the 
story of Oscar Moore, of Waco, Texas. Oscar 
was a mulatto, blind from birth, and while still 
in his cradle he corrected his elder brothers and 
sisters who stumbled over the multiplication- 
table. As Brann the Iconoclast also hailed 
from Waco, little Oscar could not claim to be 
the only phenomenon that came out of that town, 
but he was wellworth scientific attention. When 
he came under Clevenger's notice in Chicago, he 
was three years old, and already had a marvelous 
stock of information — enough to fill a handbook; 
whatever he heard he remembered, whether it 
was the population of American cities, a speech 
on the tariff, or a prayer in Chinese. He could 
recite poems in various languages, and could re-| 
peat an astonishing array of statistics. Clev- 
enger exhibited him in the Central Music Hall, 
and as the sightless colored child stood on the 
platform in his golden cage, answering question 
after question which the assembled physicians 
asked him, he was indeed an enigma. At the 
request of Henry M. Lyman, the professor of, 
neurology, Clevenger exhibited his prodigy to 
the students of the Rush Medical College. 
Gould and Pyle quote Clevenger's Infant 



182 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

Prodigy in their volume of endless fascination, 
Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine. Unfor- 
tunately, Oscar did not survive childhood. In 
October, Clevenger had another article in the 
* Alienist and Neurologist,' on Heart Disease in 
Insanity and a Case of Panphobia. 

During this year the American Medical Asso- 
ciation met at Nashville, Tennessee, and Clev- 
enger was one of the participants, but was prob- 
ably more interested in revisiting the scenes of 
his old army days than in attending the meetings : 
he found that the barracks which he had used for 
his recruits had become an hotel, and the fort on 
the hill was displaced by Fisk University, but 
when a native spoke to him, Clevenger heard 
that the Dixie dialect was still unchanged. At 
the jurisprudence section, Clevenger did some 
propaganda work by reading a paper on Erich- 
sens Disease as a Form of the Traumatic 
Neuroses. His views were tartly attacked by 
Herbert Judd and Clarke Gapen, but he was 
amply defended by Harold N. Moyer and 
James G. Kiernan, while Professor Lydston 
declared, 'Clevenger's explanation of the path- 
ology of the varying phenomena of spinal con- 
cussion is thus far the only rational and intel- 
ligible one in medical literature.' Clevenger's 



Books and Essays 183 

paper appeared as the leading article in both the 
* Journal of the American Medical Association,' 
and in the 'Boston Medical and Surgical Jour- 
nal.' 

But by 1890, Clevenger's research work was 
over, and he began to write various brief and 
ephemeral articles for the general medical press ; 
the 'Medical Standard,' whose editors have al- 
ways been anonymous, received some of these; 
his Inebriety Notes ran thru three issues of T. D. 
Crothers' 'Quarterly Journal of Inebriety;' he 
wrote Physics in a Pharmacy Course for the 
'Western Druggist,' and contributed copiously 
to the Philadelphia weekly, 'The Times and 
Register,' which had formerly been conducted by 
Horatio C. Wood, and was now under the edi- 
torship of William Francis Waugh. Dr 
Waugh was a pupil of Samuel David Gross, 
but developed into an internist instead of a sur- 
geon; he was a founder of the Medico- Chirur- 
gical College, and its first professor of medicine ; 
in an era of therapeutic doubt, Waugh had a 
positive faith in drugs — sometimes more positive 
than scientific. He was a forward-looking phy- 
sician, and one of the best editorial writers in the 
profession — which is perhaps a half-hearted 
compliment, since nearly all our editorial writers 



184 The Bon Quixote of Psychiatry 

are utterly execrable. Waugh originated cer- 
tain intestinal antiseptics and astringents for fer- 
mentative diarrhea, such as the sulphocarbolate 
of zinc, that Clevenger applauded as un- 
equalled, but Clevenger regarded Waugh 's 
later connexion with the Abbott Alkaloidal 
Company as unfortunate— for Waugh. Clev- 
enger and Waugh were kindred spirits, and 
there was a sympathetic understanding between 
the two men. 

In Waugh's journal he published his Address 
to the Chicago Academy of Medicine; it is a 
compendium of muckraking, and in showing that 
science and politics make a monstrous combina- 
tion, Clevenger wandered as far afield as pale- 
ontology: 'Professor Cope,' he asserted, 'has 
shown that the official geological surveys are de- 
bauched by pseudo-scientists who publish great 
volumes of falsehoods at the government's ex- 
pense ; and recent exposures have damned official 
American paleontology for all time in necessitat- 
ing the rewriting of text-books that assumed the 
alleged discoveries as true.' This was a slap at 
Professor Marsh, of Yale, whom, however, he 
does not name. There are those who say that 
Othniel Charles Marsh had few peers as a 
paleontologist, but we need not advance our own 



Books and Essays 185 

opinion, since it has become the fashion to refer 
all paleontological problems to Henry Fair- 
field Osborn. 

This address had been delivered at the organi- 
zation meeting of the Academy, Clevenger being 
one of its founders and its first secretary. How 
much such a society was desired in Chicago is evi- 
denced by the fact that the foremost physicians 
and surgeons of the city became Fellows, and 
either read papers at the monthly meetings or 
took part in the discussions. Among its Active 
Fellows were Nicholas Senn, John B. Mur- 
phy, John Ridlon, William Augustus Evans, 
Ludwig Hektoen, Henry Gradle, W. S. 
Christopher, Casey A. Wood, Daniel R. 
Brower, James G. Kiernan, Henry M. 
Bannister, E. C. Dudley, G. F. Lydston, 
Eugene S. Talbot, Arthur Dean Bevan, 
William Allen Pusey, Hugh T. Patrick, 
William Francis Waugh, when he became a 
Chicagoan, and Harriet Alexander, who must 
have been a learned woman, since Kiernan 
quoted her so frequently. But altho the Chicago 
Academy of Medicine officially professed to be 
modeled after the New York Academy of Medi- 
cine, within a comparatively few years it ceased 
to exist. In simple language Truthful James 



186 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

of Table Mountain explained what broke up the 
proceedings of the scientific society upon the 
Stanislau, but we have never been able to ascer- 
tain what caused the Chicago Academy of MedL; 
cine to disband — perhaps because Dr Kiernan 
quoted Dr Harriet too often. 

In 1891, Clevenger continued his miscel- 
lanea: he wrote for the 'Western Medical Re- 
porter,' the 'North American Practitioner,' and 
began Psychological Studies of Physicians for 
the 'Medical Progress' of Louisville. Number 
One was a comparison between honest old Paoli 
and Hollister whom he described under the 
name of Dr Oleaginous. Psychological Study 
Number Two never appeared — but what writer 
has not promised an editor a series of articles 
and then failed to write them? The 'Times and 
Register' of July fourth, contained Clevenger's 
Softening of the Brain, in which he showed that 
this omnibus term has no place in scientific 
nomenclature. Two of his articles appeared in 
the 'American Naturalist' during this year: The 
Coming Man, in July, and in November, Lan- 
guage and Maw Muller, in which he criticized 
certain of the theories of this famous philologist. 
It was no trouble for Clevenger to criticize 
anyone. 



Books and Essays 187 

During 1892, he wrote various notes for 
'Science,' such as Preliminary Note on Sleep, 
and the longer Brain and Skull Correlations. 
To the 'Times and Register' he contributed the 
Acid Prevention of Cholera, suggesting the 
acidulation of the lower bowel by galvanism, as 
the cholera germ thrives in the alkaline intestinal 
fluids, but is destroyed by acid. Many of thq 
journals that have been named above, especially 
Waugh's magazine, were now the beneficiaries 
of his prolific pen, but most of his contributions 
were either 'fillers' or re-statements of his former 
ideas. A brief address before the Evolution 
Club on Nervous and Mental Aspects on Vivi- 
section, showing the value of animal experimen- 
tation in neurology and psychiatry, appeared in 
the 'Religio-Philosophical Journal;' a more 
formal address, before the Chicago Academy of 
Medicine, on Natural Analogies, was published 
in the 'American Naturalist.' At the request of 
Mr Clark Bell he wrote a short autobiograph- 
ical sketch for the 'Medico-Legal Journal,' but 
in spite of the implied compliment, Clevenger 
had a poor opinion of Clark Bell, Esquire — in 
which opinion we cheerfully concur. A medico- 
legal editor who fills his pages with astrology, 
simply advertises his asininity. 



188 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

During 1893, further notes appeared in 'Sci- 
ence,' and the 'Times and Register' was not for- 
gotten, but no noteworthy production issued 
from his pen. The medical press, however, ex- 
ists on ephemera. 

In 1894, Clevenger's Sleep, Sleeplessness and 
Hypnotics appeared in the 'Journal of the 
American Medical Association,' which had not 
yet commenced its assaults on proprietaries, for 
this contribution was really a eulogy of chloral- 
amid. Lehn & Fink promptly put this pane- 
gyric in pamphlet-form, and mailed copies to 
physicians all over the country. The article had 
appeared originally in March, and by November 1 
this firm had distributed twenty-five thousand 
reprints. So at last Clevenger was a popular 
medical author. Neglect has now descended 
upon chloralamid, and under its full-dress name 
of chloralformamidum it is no longer official, but 
Clevenger always regarded it as the best of hyp- 
notics and the safest of sleep-producers. In 
November of this year, Clevenger's Mysopho- 
bia, a case report of insane dread of contamina- 
tion, was published in the 'Western Medical Re- 
porter.' 

For the next few years, Clevenger's contribu- 
tions to periodical literature were confined 



Books and Essays 189 

largely to the 'Journal of the American Medical 
Association.' In Conservative Brain Surgery, 
which was published in June, 1895, he flayed Dr 
Lanphear, who in Lectures on Intracranial 
Surgery, had claimed impossibly brilliant results 
in operative cerebrology. Emory Lanphear 
may have been shocked at this criticism, but since 
that time he has been exposed so frequently that 
he must have acquired immunity to ethical at- 
tacks. Clevenger's Post- Alcoholism appeared 
in the 'Journal of the American Medical Asso- 
ciation,' during October. 

The 'Journal of the American Medical Asso- 
ciation' of February, 1896, published the final 
version of Clevenger's The Mercurials — a thesis 
upon which he had been working since his school-/ 
days, his preliminary reports having appeared, 
in the eighties, in the 'Chicago Medical Review,' 
'Chicago Medical Journal and Examiner,' 
'American Journal of Microscopy,' 'Chicago 
Druggist,' and 'Galliard's Medical Journal.' 
Taking as his text, the words of Franexin 
Bache, 'Of the modus operandi of mercury we 
know nothing, except that it acts thru the medi- 
um of the circulation, and that it possesses a 
peculiar alterative power over the vital functions, 
which enables it in many cases to subvert diseased 



190 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

actions,' Clevenger proceeded to investigate its 
microscopy, chemistry, toxicology, physiological 
action and therapeutics. 

The chief result of these studies was Clev- 
enger's mechanical explanation of the mercurials 
in therapeusis. He took the ground that mercury 
acts mechanically as a deobstruent upon the 
glands and lesser tubular structures, by virtue 
of its unstable chemic properties, its volatility 
and great weight, claiming that all the salts of 
mercury are reduced to oxides and mercurial 
globules, exerting their peculiar effects mainly 
by their occluding action upon the minute tubules 
of the body, the syphilitic organism being en- 
closed by the mercury globules acting similarly 
to phagocytes in passing the micro-organism to- 
ward the emunctories. 

Clevenger's experimentation was certainly 
suggestive, and to no other one subject was he 
faithful for so extended a period, but contem- 
porary text-books describe mercury without 
mentioning Clevenger's researches — and we 
confess that our acquaintance with the dynamics 
of hydrargyrum is insufficient to enable us to 
judge whether the text-books or Clevenger's[ 
researches are at fault. It should be stated that 
former editions of Horatio C. Wood's standard 



Books and Essays 191 

Therapeutics carried a foot-note reference to 
Clevenger's The Mercurials, but even this foot- 
note has disappeared. According to Clevenger, 
Professor Wood deleted this foot-note from later 
editions of his text-book because in the meantime 
Clevenger had criticized Wood's granular 
medulla of hydrophobia as an alcohol preserva- 
tive artefact, and in revenge the angry Wood 
resolved to advertise Clevenger no more. We 
trust that this version is not strictly accurate, 
but it is true that Clevenger could have col- 
laborated with Whistler in writing the Gentle 
Art of Making Enemies. 

In the same month that The Mercurials was 
published, Clevenger contributed Some Mis- 
leading Medical Misnomers to Edward C. 
Register's 'Charlotte Medical Journal,' which 
was almost as worthless a periodical then as it is 
today. Clevenger's article, however, was a val- 
uable one, for he inveighed against descriptive 
naming in medicine, and pleaded for eponymic 
terms. Explaining that electricians secured pre- 
cision by avoiding descriptive phrases, and adopt- 
ing such eponyms as farad, watt, ampere, ohm, 
f aradic, galvanic, franklinic, after the discoverers 
of these measurements and currents, Clevenger 
pointed out that if the condition first described 



192 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

by Bayle had been named Bayle's disease in- 
stead of paretic dementia, or general paralysis 
of the insane, or progressive paresis, much con- 
fusion would have been avoided, and profession 
and public would be compelled to learn just what 
symptoms constitute Bayle's disease instead of 
guessing at them from the descriptive title. The 
Basle Anatomical Nomenclature is triumphant 
today, but we predict — at least we hope — it will 
be superseded by a nomenclature that adopts, 
instead of abandoning, eponyms, tho of course 
there is more excuse for descriptive terms in 
anatomy than in any of the clinical branches of 
medicine. 

In May of this year, Clevenger's Treatment 
of the Insane was read by title in the section of 
State Medicine at the annual meeting of the 
American Medical Association, held at Atlanta, 
Georgia, and appeared in the 'Journal of the 
American Medical Association,' for October. It 
was a review of the methods of treating the insane 
in various countries and ages — fourteen long 
columns of infamies and horrors. 

In January, 1897, the 'Journal of the Ameri- 
can Medical Association' published Clevenger's 
Pain and its Therapewsis, in which he wrote that 
lactophenin 'is destined largely to supersede the 



Boohs and Essays 193 

entire array of analgesics proper, owing to its 
non-toxic peculiarities' and other virtues. Clev- 
enger's prophecies were numerous, but nearly 
always incorrect — the usual fate of predictions; 
in spite of his foretokening a great future for 
lactophenm, it is now regarded merely as a weak 
brother of phenacetin. Pain and its Therapeu- 
sis was Clevenger's last article in the 'Journal 
of the American Medical Association/ and it 
represents — with the exception of a few minor 
reports in unimportant periodicals — his final con- 
tribution to medical journalism. 

In the following year, 1898, when he was fifty- 
five years of age, appeared his biggest book — the 
Medical Jurisprudence of Insanity \ published in 
two stately volumes by the Lawyers' Co-opera- 
tive Publishing Company, of Rochester, New 
York. Certainly it contains considerable valu- 
able information on forensic psychiatry, and 
Clevenger was immensely proud of this 
achievement, and of course some of his friends — 
like attorney Luther Laflin Mills — told him 
it was the best treatise on the subject in any 
language, but it has not reached a second edition, 
and never will, and it did not rank the name of 
Clevenger with Theodoric Romeyn Beck, 
Isaac Ray, John Ordronaux, and John James 1 



194 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

Reese. In brief, Clevenger's large Medical 
Jurisprudence of Insanity is not a landmark in 
legal medicine. 

Dr Clevenger claimed this work was based 
on memoranda that he had been gathering for 
a generation; to collect notes is commendable, 
but they must be put together so the patches do 
not show. In the finished statue, the scaffolding 
should not be seen. Previous writings, quota- 
tions from others, personal observations, news- 
paper clippings, bunches of odds and ends, ex- 
traneous and adventitious comments, and addi- 
tional knowledge, must be slowly and skilfully 
moulded into homogeneity. Several of his pas- 
sages read like hastily-scribbled jottings that 
have been pulled out of a drawer, instead of well- 
considered and final phrases. One of the chief, 
defects of Clevenger's books is that they are not 
organic buildings raised anew, but are second- 
hand structures put together from previous 
pieces. It is true that the blocks he uses are his 
own, but when once employed elsewhere they 
cannot fit so well into future work unless plenty: 
of cement is applied. In the Medical Jurispru- 
dence of Insanity, there is a discursiveness and 
diffuseness all thru the volumes, and we miss 
the conciseness, the systematized classification, 



Books and Essays 195 

and those sonorous sentences that we find with 
pleasure in Spitzka. 

For example, the lengthy chapter on Treat- 
ment is suggestive and interesting, but it is so 
mal-arranged that if we wish to look up a cer- 
tain line of therapy, or wish to find a list of drugs 
employed in insanity, we must hunt thru the en- 
tire chapter ; obviously, it would have been better 
to discuss the subject in logical order: first, the 
prophylactic and psychical treatment, then the 
dietetic and hygienic treatment, finally the medic- 
inal and surgical treatment. Essays may be 
lawless, but text-books must follow a system. 

'The insane have more often been harmed than 
helped by medicines,' is the statement with which 
Clevenger opens this chapter. It is a dictum 
that would have aroused opposition in the days 
when men believed blindly in the materia medica, 
but today most doctors will not only admit its 
validity, but will extend its application to the 
sane also. The modern spirit is the great anti- 
toxin for tradition. No god at present sits on 
an uncontested throne, and pedestals that once 
were overcrowded with idols, now stand unten- 
anted and unwor shipped. Doubt whispers in 
the ear of the judge, the cleric grows less sure of 
hell, and physician and public are losing their 



196 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

pharmacopeial faith. In other days, when a girl 
was married, she received as portion of her dowry 
a big medicine-spoon, and if it was not filled fre- 
quently enough the good wife imagined she was 
neglecting her duties, but the bride of today is 
apt to prefer a phonograph, a tennis-racket or a 
silver cigarette-case. 

Clevenger's remarks on the bromides, how- 
ever, — 'the bromides have been used altogether 
too much; they bring about deterioration of 
blood, health, and mind,' — are at variance with 
the convictions of his confreres, for if there is one 
belief to which the profession still clings, it is 
bromides in epilepsy — tho even this conviction is 
being daily assailed by an increasing minority. 

Clevenger's Medical Jurisprudence is a good 
work for lawyers, as medical matters are dis- 
cussed in non-technical language, and if they 
learn a portion of its contents they will be able 
to embarrass many an insanity expert. Thruout 
the work we find his usual indignant outcry 
against politicians. 

Five years later he issued another large work, 
the Evolution of Man and his Mind, published 
by the Evolution Publishing Company, which 
was himself. From this time on, Clevenger 
was his own publisher. His Evolution of Man 



Books and Essays 197 

and his Mind may be considered a popularization 
of his more technical Comparative Physiology 
and Psychology. On account of its subject-mat- 
ter it recalls Win wood Reade's Martyrdom of 
Man, but is much inferior to that masterpiece. 
The reader who is unfamiliar with evolutionary 
and liberal literature will gain a varied assort- 
ment of interesting information by a perusal of 
Clevenger's volume, as it is a sort of kaleido- 
scopic review of world-history from the stand- 
point of a modernist. 

In 1905 he published a small work which he 
named Therapeutics, Materia Medica, and Prac- 
tice of Medicine. The subjects are arranged in 
alphabetical order, but without plan, method or 
sequence. It is a haphazard, heterogeneous jum- 
ble, and it is regrettable that it should have pro- 
ceeded from the same hand which turned out the 
Disadvantages of the Upright Position, but such 
accidents seem liable to occur in an author's life. 
James Lane Allen, whose Reign of Law and 
Kentucky Cardinal rank with the best fiction in 
American literature, penned also the Heroine in 
Bronze, which has all the defects of the average 
dime-novel, and few of its virtues ; Jack London, 
with his strong and splendid Call of the Wild 
and Martin Eden, was guilty of such inexcusable 



198 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

and unmitigated trash as Adventure and the 
Abysmal Brute; Edith Wharton, with the ex- 
quisite The Reef and Summer to her credit, lost 
herself in the mawkish Fruit of the Tree, But 
the so-called Therapeutics, Materia Medica, and 
Practice of Medicine is not entirely devoid of in- 
terest, and Clevenger's definitions of medical 
sectarianism are worth quoting, because they re- 
veal his detestation of all varieties of obscur- 
antism in the healing art: 

Christian Science: Homeopathy without sugar pills. 

Eclecticism: An obsolescing offshoot from Thomp- 
sonianism in which it was taught that minerals from the 
ground denoted death and should not be used, but plants 
grew above the ground and indicated life and are alone 
fit for medicine, in ignorance of minerals forming on 
the earth's surface and of some plants beneath. Grad- 
ually many of the silly tenets of eclecticism have been 
abandoned and regular respectable medicine is mainly 
taught in its schools, until eclectic differ from regular 
physicians mostly in name tho materia medica and in- 
dications for therapeusis are a little antiquated and il- 
logical. 

Homeopathy: Suggestive therapeutics, or faith cure 
with sugar pills. False homeopathy ignorantly risks 
regular medicines, pretending they are homeopathic, 
particularly alkaloids because they can be used in 
minute doses. 






Books and Essays 199 

Osteopathy: Ignorant massage. 
Physio-Medical: Title of a quack system. 

Mechano-therapy, naprapathy, and chiro- 
praxis were not yet flourishing humbugs, and 
thus escaped inclusion on the unnecessary roll of 
medical denominationalism. 

In 1909, when he was sixty-six years old, ap- 
peared his last book, Fun in a Doctor s Life, and 
with this publication Clevenger's career as an 
author may be said to end, for his contributions 
were no longer of sufficient value to be accepted 
by the better medical periodicals for which he 
had formerly written, and the material which he 
furnished in his old age to low-grade journals 
may be disregarded. 

Fun in a Doctor's Life is an autobiography, 
but is evidently an offhand work, not intended 
to rank as a serious production. Events and 
persons of importance are omitted, while chapters 
are devoted to incidents of trifling significance. 
Our readers certainly know that Clevenger was 
pathologist at Dunning ten years before he was 
medical superintendent at Kankakee, but Dr 
Clevenger chooses to relate his experiences at 
Kankakee fifty pages before he speaks about 
Dunning. Moreover, the book is loaded with 
some of the oldest jokes on record. In spite of 



200 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

these defects, Fun in a Doctor s Life makes easy, 
entertaining and interesting reading, and per- 
sonally we are indebted to it for some data which 
we could not have secured elsewhere. 

Clevenger was not a literary craftsman; he 
never spent time in polishing his phrases. Yet 
he was a ready writer, and his style, tho seldom 
powerful and never classic, was often vivacious 
and at times graphic. His work is not ill- 
natured, but fault-finding is abundant, and even 
his technical papers are polemical. He seemed 
to believe that whatever is, is wrong — which is 
certainly more honest than believing the reverse. 
In his writings he rarely boosted himself, but on 
occasions was apt to be a bit oracular — the com- 
mon failing of authors. As an example of his 
satire, the following is characteristic: 

Were typhoid fever to become the basis of damage 
suits, say against aldermen, for having allowed the city 
water supply to become polluted, there would arise a 
flock of experts who would swear away the possibility 
of typhoid fever ever having existed, and they would 
claim that what hitherto had been known by that name 
was really something else, due to alcoholism, syphilis, 
and indiscretions generally. The typhoid bacillus 
would be derided, and it could be easily shown that 
many bacilli had been discredited as causing disease; 



Books and Essays 201 

and the poor old fogy who had defended the traditional 
typhoid would doubt his ability, on escaping from the 
witness-stand, to diagnose tonsilitis from hemorrhoids. 

At a certain medical meeting, the ubiquitous 
William Osleb, placed his hand on Clevenger's 
shoulder, and smilingly said: 'We write too 
much.' In reviewing Clevenger's writings of 
half a century — from 1859 to 1909 — we agree 
that for a man who was actively engaged in other 
pursuits, he published too much. With the ex- 
ception of his Treatise on Government Survey- 
ing, which does not concern us, nearly all his 
valuable work appeared in the decade from 1879 
to 1889, beginning with Cerebral Topography 
and concluding with Spinal Concussion, embrac- 
ing his thirty-sixth to forty-sixth years. The 
Mercurials , in its final form, appeared in 1896, 
but as it was based on the experimental work he 
had done fifteen years previously, and formed the 
inaugural thesis that he had read to the Chicago 
Biological Society in 1880, it really belongs to 
the earlier date. 

It would have been better, instead of publish- 
ing some of his later works, if Dr Clevenger had 
gathered the chief papers of these ten years into 



202 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

a book bearing the title, Neurological and Bio- 
logical Essays. Such a volume, containing the 
fruits of his mental prime, would occupy an 
honored place in the library of American Science. 






CHAPTER VII 
THE PHILADELPHIA GROUP 

CLEVENGER'S work naturally brought 
him into communion with various scien- 
tists; with some of these his contact was only 
casual, while with others he formed friendships, 
fostered by correspondence, that persisted for 
years. 

A pencilled post-card which Clevenger 
mailed to his wife during his Philadelphia visit 
in 1883, gives us a glimpse of his intimacy with 
several of the illustrious sons of the University 
of Pennsylvania : 

I reached here yesterday morning quite early and the 
day was made a very pleasant one for me by Profes- 
sors Cope, H. C. Wood, Pepper and Mills. I stay 
at Prof. Cope's house, and went with him to the Phila- 
delphia Academy of Natural Sciences, before which 
venerable body I lectured last night. I felt all the hon- 
ors of the occasion. Today I visit Prof. Leidy and 
then go to New York. 

That must have been a memorable day which 
Clevenger spent with Leidy, for the famous 

203 



204 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

Philadelphian was an intellectual spendthrift 
who poured out his biologic treasures in profu- 
sion. Leidy was twenty years older than Clev- 
enger, and it seems that his ancestors — who came 
from the valley of the Rhine — were neither great 
robbers nor favorites of princes, for the family 
did not boast of its heraldry, but worked for a 
living. Joseph Leidy's father, Philip Leidy, 
kept a hatter's shop on Third and Vine Streets. 
The hatter's wife died during Joseph's infancy, 
and instead of going into strange territory, Mr 
Leidy promptly married one of his wife's rela- 
tions. For centuries the stepmother has been 
a symbol of cruelty and harshness, but Joseph 
Leidy's stepmother was his chief benefactor. 

A letter written by a visiting relative during 
Leidy's childhood, describes 'Joe,, sitting on the 
floor, looking at the sides of an earthworm, 
stretched upon a board.' The hatter's son was 
a born scientist — mysterious are the ways of 
heredity — and in his young days, when more pro- 
fessional material was not available, he employed 
barnyard fowls as subjects for dissection. At 
the age of ten, he filled a small book with draw- 
ings of shells. 

His stepmother sent him to the Classical 
Academy conducted by a Methodist clergyman, 



The Philadelphia Group 205 

but the embryo biologist often absented himself 
from the Latin and rhetoric to seek specimens. 
The boys of a rival institution sometimes fought 
with the students of the Classical Academy, and 
accordingly a colored lad named Cyrus Burris 
was hired to protect Joseph from 'those rowdy 
boys' — as the affectionate stepmother called the 
other boys. Cyrus Burris performed his duties 
perhaps too faithfully, for not only did he escort 
his charge to school, but he accompanied him 
when Leidy remained away from school. On 
fine days, while his classmates were bending over 
their books, Joseph and his intelligent and lik-( 
able companion wandered thru the neighboring 
woods, studying nature. 

When Leidy was sixteen years old, it was time 
to look around for a means of livelihood, and as- 
he had a talent for drawing, his father thought he 
ought to be a sign-painter. But Leidy had al- 
ready passed several stray hours in the whole- 
sale drug-house of his cousin, Dr Napoleon By 
Leidy, and wanted to be an apothecary. His 
father consented, and in due time Leidy began 
to make money and might have remained a phar- 
macist for years, but at this juncture his step- 
mother interfered. She insisted that the drug- 
trade was not suitable for Leidy, and urged that 



206 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

he prepare himself for the higher calling of medi- 
cine. 

But Leidy's father stubbornly refused to hear 
of another profession, saying that the boy was 
getting a good salary now, and financial returns 
from medicine were always uncertain. Why, 
there was Dr So-and-So who had been practising 
for ten years, and didn't have enough capital to 
buy a decent hat. So the domestic peace was 
disturbed by wordy warfare, until victory 
perched on the stepmother's banner. 

In the autumn of 1840, Leidy became a pupil 
of Dr James McClintock, a private teacher of 
anatomy. The father proposed to pay the pre- 
ceptor's fee in hats, a bargain which was ac- 
cepted. But it seems the hats didn't fit, for a 
dispute arose, and Philip Leidy was a mad hat- 
ter. The following year, young Leidy matricu- 
lated at the University of Pennsylvania, received 
his M.D. in 1844, and displayed his sign at 211 
North Sixth Street. Most doctors are average 
men, and they scramble greedily for coin, but in 
every age there have been physicians whom na- 
ture did not intend to be practitioners: in the 
seventeenth century, Swammerdam graduated 
in medicine, but no parental threats could induce 
him to attend a patient; in the eighteenth cen- 



The Philadelphia Group 207 

tury, Hunter flung down his scalpel with an 
oath when he was obliged to leave his dissection 
in order to earn 'that damned guinea/ and in the 
nineteenth century, Haeckel fixed his office- 
hours at six in the morning, so patients would 
not interrupt his investigations. To this unprac- 
tical group of immortals, Joseph Leidy belongs : 
he was called to an obstetric case, but before he 
arrived the baby was born, for Dr Leidy forgot 
all about the coming event while engrossed over 
the anatomy of a worm. 

One morning, during his twenty-third year, 
Leidy sat down to a breakfast that was to make 
his name a landmark in the history of parasitol- 
ogy. For in a slice of ham that was served to 
him, he noticed numerous white specks. Instead 
of grumbling at the cook, he placed these specks 
under his microscope, and they proved to be the 
cysts of the trichina spiralis, which Richard 
Owen had observed in the human muscle. 
Leidy's interrupted breakfast prepared the way 
for Leuckart's revelation that trichinosis in 
man is due to eating infected pork. Science is 
international, and the first step in this triple dis- 
covery was made by an Englishman, the second 
by an American, and the third by a German. 

At the age of twenty-four, Leidy proved that 



208 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

the fossil horse of America, tho extinct at the 
time of Columbus, had existed in this country 
in prehistoric eras. As his doctor's sign was still 
in his window when he accomplished this feat, it 
is obvious that he was not too busy with patients. 

The following year, William E. Horner, the 
frail but brilliant professor of anatomy at the 
University of Pennsylvania, was advised to un J 
dertake a European trip for his health, and he 
asked Leidy, who was already his prosector, to 
be his companion — and no coaxing was required 
to induce this doctor to abandon his practice. 

Two years later, in 1850, George B. Wood, 
the eminent professor of materia medica, ar- 
ranged to visit Europe to collect models, casts, 
and preparations, and again the lovable Leidy 
was invited to go. During these excursions, 
Leidy met the leaders of European science: 
Magendie and Milne-Edwards in France, 
Owen and Darwin in England, and Johannes 
Muller in Germany. Altho still in his twen- 
ties, Leidy had a scientist's reputation, and when, 
the modest youth, upon the repeated solicitation 
of Professor Wood, sent in his card to Muller, 
the great physiologist came out crying, 'Which 
is Leidy?' 

In 1851 Leidy composed a work on Flora and 



The Philadelphia Group 209 

Fauna Within Living Animals, in which he es- 
tablished that the alimentary canal is the natural 
home of a most diversified animal and vegetable 
life. Leidy dealt with facts, and rarely in- 
dulged in speculations, but in this treatise there 
occurs the following exception: 

The study of the earth's crust teaches us that very 
many species of plants and animals became extinct at 
successive periods, while other races originated to oc- 
cupy their places. This probably was the result, in 
many cases, of a change in exterior conditions incom- 
patible with the life of certain species and favorable 
to the primitive production of others. . . . There ap- 
pear to be but trifling steps from the oscillating par- 
ticle of inorganic matter to a bacterium; from this to 
a vibrio, thence to a monas, and so gradually up to the 
highest orders of life. . . . 

So here we have a remarkable passage, written; 
by a youth of twenty-eight, several years before 
the publication of Origin of Species, briefly but 
clearly foreshadowing the essentials of Dar- 
winism. 

In 1852, Leidy was all agog at the prospect 
of accompanying an expedition to the West to 
collect fossils, but at the last moment he was 
obliged to remain home. For the discoverer of 



210 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

Horner's muscle no longer had strength to lec- 
ture, and Leidy delivered the course. The fol- 
lowing year Horner's illness passed into death^ 
and such men as Joseph Henry and Jeffries 
Wyman worked for Leidy's election to the va- 
cant chair. Spencer Fullerton Baird, who 
for many years was a sort of superintendent of 
American science, wrote to Leidy: 'Do not leave 
Philadelphia until you have settled the profes- 
sorship. Do not worry about the fossil bones. 
They will be sent to you anyhow' — which was 
true, as Leidy was then the most active paleon- 
tologist in America. But antagonists arose who 
accused Leidy of making proselytes to infidelity, 
and it was asserted that 'he tried to prove that 
geology overthrows the Mosaic account of crea- 
tion' — which it certainly does. Was there ever 
an honest scientist who has not been accused of 
attempting to subvert the Jewish account of 
creation? 

Merit is sometimes rewarded, for Leidy ob- 
tained the professorship. Thus at the age of 
thirty he became the successor to such historic 
figures in American anatomy as William 
Shippen, Jr, Caspar Wistar, John Syng 
Dorsey, Philip Syng Physick, and William 
E. Horner. Moderate as was the salary, Leidy 



The Philadelphia Group 211 

was delighted at the prospect of a definite income, 
for it liberated him from the necessity of continu- 
ing an intolerable practice. But the hatter 
shook his head, and simply said that 'a first-class 
sign painter had been .spoiled to make a poor 
doctor.' 

For the rest of his life, Leidy taught anatomy 
for a living, and became the leader of American 
anatomists, but his heart was in natural history. 
Altho educated as a physician, he lectured to 
hosts of medical students on anatomy without 
ever referring to its application in medicine. In 
the year in which he entered upon his professor-) 
ship, 1853, he published, not a treatise on my- 
ology, but that paleontological classic, the 
Ancient Fauna of Nebraska. He described the 
attic of the middle ear, and proved the existence 
of the intermaxillary bone in the human embryo, 
thus confirming the prophecy of Goethe, but 
Leidy's discoveries in human anatomy were not 
significant. His Elementary Treatise on Hu- 
man Anatomy, illustrated by himself, anglicised 
the terms in the text, relegating the Latin equiva- 
lents to foot-notes, under the belief that this 
method would render the subject easier for stu- 
dents—but the innovation did not popularize the 
English tongue, and when Gray appeared with 



212 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

the names printed directly upon the structures, 
it became the Gibraltar of text-books. Leidy 
was now a scientist of wide renown, but it is 
eminently characteristic of the man that one of 
the first copies of his book was inscribed 'To 
Cyrus Burris, from his old friend, the author.' 

In 1854, the Ray Society published the last of 
Darwin's four Monographs on the Cirripedes, 
and the greatest of biologists refers to Leidy's 
discoveries, saying, 'owing to Prof. Leidy's dis- 
covery of eyes in a Balanus, I was led to look 
for them in the Lepadidse.' 

The year 1859 was of importance to Leidy, 
for upon the appearance of Darwin's Origin of 
Species, he said he felt 'as tho I had hitherto 
groped almost in the darkness and all of a sudden 
a meteor flashed upon the skies.' Asa Gray and 
Joseph Leidy were the first scientists who wel- 
comed the theory of evolution to America, and 
in answering Leidy, Darwin wrote with his 
usual modesty — and parentheses : 

Most paleontologists (with some few exceptions) en- 
tirely despise my work ; consequently approbation from 
you has gratified me much. All the older geologists 
(with the one exception of Lyell, whom I look at as 
a host in himself) are even more vehement against the 




JOSEPH LEIDY 



The Philadelphia Group 213 

modification of species than are even the paleontolo- 
gists. . . . Your sentence, that you have some inter- 
esting facts in support of the doctrine of selection, has 
delighted me even more than the rest of your note. 

At the age of forty, Leidy relinquished his 
bachelordom to become the husband of Anna 
Harden. As they had no children of their own, 
they adopted the daughter of a deceased pro- 
fessor, and little Alwina Franks brought them 
much happiness. Nature is an incorrigible 1 
blunderer: imbeciles are notoriously fertile, but 
Joseph Leidy, one of the noblest of men, was 
sterile. Leidy was not a Christian, but did not 
marry in order to have religion in his wife's name, 
for when interrogated on theology, he responded 
that his views were ably expressed in John 
Fiske's Cosmic Philosophy, 

For many years Leidy's discoveries were so 
numerous that no one remembers them all. He 
knew little, and cared little, for general litera- 
ture, and poetry to him was only 'rhyming stuff' 
and a 'roundabout way of expressing ideas,' but 
as a zoologist he knew everything from a proto- 
zoan to man. From the sediment which he 
squeezed from a piece of moss, he found thirty- 
eight kinds of rhizopods. A muddy drop of 



214 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

water in a neighboring ditch would yield a dis- 
covery to Leidy. His monumental Fresh 
Water Rhizopods of North America was created 
with a microscope that cost fifty dollars. With 
equal facility he could describe a new-born bark- 
louse that crawled on a tree, or a huge mastodon 
that had lain for centuries dead. His researches 
on the comparative anatomy of the liver are val- 
uable, and he was the first who experimented in 
the transplantation of malignant tumors ; his dif- 
ferentiation of the parasitic amebse, his belief 
that flies are the transmitters of disease, his loca- 
tion of a hookworm in a sick cat and suggestion 
that it might be responsible for pathological con- 
ditions in the human race, are almost lost in a 
mass of other discoveries in zoology, helminthol- 
ogy, and paleontology. 

When Leidy became the founder of vertebrate 
paleontology in America, Marsh was a lad and 
Cope an infant, and for a long time Leidy car- 
ried the science on his shoulders. His Creta- 
ceous Reptiles of the United States, and Contri- 
butions to the Extinct Vertebrate Fauna of the 
Western Territories are imperishable master- 
pieces, and his monograph of 1869, On the Ex- 
tinct Mammalia of Dakota and Nebraska, is pro- 
nounced by Osborn the most important paleon- 



The Philadelphia Group 215 

tological work which America has produced, with 
the possible exception of Cope's Tertiary Verte- 
brata. Yet with the exception of his text-book 
on anatomy and his reports to the Surgeon-Gen- 
eral, Leidy's writings brought him no pecuniary 
reward. Ever since money was invented, most 
of it has been in the wrong hands. Debauchers 
of our literature, our McCutcheons, Mc- 
Graths and Dixons, make more from a best- 
seller which is forgotten within a twelvemonth 
of publication, than Leidy earned from hundreds 
of pamphlets and volumes which advanced the 
boundary-lines of human knowledge. On sev- 
eral occasions, Leidy attempted to augment his 
meagre income, but with results that ultimately 
led him to desist. Fortunes were made in petro- 
leum ; Leidy speculated in it, until he found him- 
self minus four thousand dollars. He invested 
in a silver mine, and lost eight thousand dollars. 
He purchased stock in a railroad, which from 
that day ceased paying dividends. 

Clevenger has told the writer of Leidy's ap- 
proachableness and unaffected humility, and all 
who knew him testify that rarely has so great a 
man been so simple. At a time when the name 
of Joseph Leidy was honored by every scientist! 



216 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

in America and Europe, he would go, at six in 
the morning, to the large fish-market on Twelfth 
Street, sit behind the stalls, talking and laughing 
with the men, watching them as they cleaned the 
fish to see if there was anything of interest to 
him. Passers-by who noticed this broad-chested, 
strong-limbed man of two hundred pounds, with 
his full beard, flowing hair and pensive eyes, 
must have taken him for a super-fisherman. 

Leidy loved peace, and never made an enemy. 
So averse was he to belligerency, that some one 
remarked, 'Leidy is an invertebrate.' His good- 
ness, gentleness, helpfulness, were proverbial, 
and he was regarded as the prototype of the 
faultless man. Perhaps the bitterest words that 
Leidy ever uttered, were spoken in the winter of 
his life, to the distinguished Scottish geologist, 
Sir Archibald Geikie: 

Formerly every fossil bone found in the States came 
to me, for nobody else cared to study such things. But 
now Professors Marsh and Cope, with long purses, 
offer money for what used to come to me for nothing, 
and in that respect I cannot compete with them. So 
now, as I get nothing, I have gone back to my micro- 
scope and my rhizopods and make myself busy and 
happy with them. 



The Philadelphia Group 217 

Leidy received various foreign honors, such 
as the Lyell Medal from England and the Cuvier 
Medal from France, and was president of sev- 
eral scientific associations in America. He 
served as first president of the Association of 
American Anatomists, and was succeeded by one 
of his pupils who resembled him in many respects 
— Harrison Allen. 

The ancestors of Allen arrived in Philadel- 
phia with William Penn, but evidently did not 
accumulate wealth for their descendants, as 
Harrison Allen was obliged to leave high- 
school because he lacked funds. Already he was 
eager for natural history, but the need of wages 
drove him into a hardware store ; next he worked 
on a farm, and the nearest he could get to science 
was by entering the dental office of Dr J. Foster 
Flagg. During his leisure he read medical 
books, took courses in the University of Penn- 
sylvania, where he came under the influence of 
Leidy, and in his twentieth year received his 
M.D., just as the Civil War was beginning. 

At first he was resident physician in the Block- 
ley Hospital of Philadelphia, but during the 
greater part of the conflict was assigned to hos- 
pitals in Washington. As there are more than 
140 references to him in the Medical and Surgical 



218 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

History of the War of the Rebellion, he must 
have been kept busy, but every precious moment 
that he could spare was spent in the Smithsonian 
Institution — and here he worked under those 
makers of American science, Spencer F. Baird 
and Joseph Henry. 

Allen's earliest publication was a Descrip- 
tion of New Pteropine Bats of North Africa, 
which had been brought over by the explorer 
Du Chaillu. Allen never deserted these 
aerial mammals, and wrote over thirty essays on 
bats, including the classic Monograph on the 
Bats of North America, which was published by 
the Smithsonian Institution. In honor of his 
high-school teacher, Dr Henry McMurtrie, 
Allen named the Mexican bat, Centurio 
McMurtrii — this being the highest honor that 
Allen could bestow. 

But Allen's scientific interests were not lim- 
ited to bats, as is evident from his Crania from 
Florida Mounds and Hawaiian Skulls — both of 
them important contributions to craniology. It 
was Harrison Allen who dissected and de- 
scribed that unforgettable freak of nature — the 
Siamese twins. Among his other writings are 
the Origin and History of Art-Designs, tracing 
them to anatomical archetypes, Localization of 



The Philadelphia Group 219 

Diseased Action in the Osseous System, On the 
Rhinoscope and Diseases of the Pharynx, On 
Pathological Anatomy of Osteomyelitis, and The 
Jaw of Moulin-Quignon. His text-book, Out- 
lines of Comparative Anatomy and Medical 
Zoology, was followed in later years by a System 
of Human Anatomy — the result of long and 
faithful travail, and bringing him fame, but leav- 
ing his pocket empty. 

In his twenty-fourth year Allen was ap- 
pointed professor in the University of Pennsyl- 
vania, and for thirty years he taught in this in- 
stitution, tho he shifted somewhat from chair to 
chair. He was devoid of aggressiveness, but 
rose to a leading position in American anatomy 
and rhino-laryngology. His researches were not 
of Leidyian scope, but he resembled Leidy in 
character : pure-hearted and humble, earnest and 
unpretentious, he labored for science and loved 
his fellow-men. From the lips of Harrison 
Allen never fell an unkind word — even about 
bores. This unusual forbearance on Allen's 
part is vouched for by so careful an observer as 
Burt G. Wilder, who further claims that if the 
devil had been objurgated in his presence, Allen 
would have answered: 'His satanic majesty has 
doubtless many sins to answer for, but let us not 



220 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

forget his extraordinary ability, activity, and 
enterprise.' 

Wilder, who was closely attached to Allen, 
points out that the climax of Allen's useful and 
honorable career was reached in 1891, for in that 
year he became professor, for the second time, of 
comparative anatomy and zoology at the Univer- 
sity of Pennsylvania, president of the Contem- 
porary Club of Philadelphia, curator of the 
Wistar Institute of Anatomy, president of the 
Anthropometric Society, president of the Asso- 
ciation of American Anatomists, succeeding 
Joseph Leidy, and published a dozen papers. 

Clevenger's acquaintance with Allen began 
at the outset of the former's professional career, 
when he sent Professor Allen some reprints 
which were acknowledged in a courteous note: 

I have received your papers, which you were kind 
enough to send me, on the Sulcus Rolando, the Topog- 
raphy of the Cerebrum, and the Action of Mercury. I 
have read these with great interest. I would esteem it 
a great favor if you would send me your papers that 
you may hereafter publish. I will heartily reciprocate. 

Clevenger then told Allen of the School of 
Biology he was founding, and Allen, who seems 
to have been moved easily to enthusiasm, cried, 



The Philadelphia Group 221 

'All hail to Chicago! I wish we had more of 
her spirit here.' But when the Clevengerian 
School of Biology failed to materialize, and in- 
stead, the Dunning Asylum sent its stench over 
the land, Allen became reconciled to the town 
that his ancestors chose, and wrote to Clev- 
enger: 'Truly you have an extraordinary state 
of affairs in Chicago. If we have any feelings of 
discontent here, how quickly they should disap- 
pear when the Philadelphia status is compared 
with the Chicagoan.' 

In Allen's letter to Clevenger, of April, 
1884, occurs an epigrammatic paragraph which 
might provoke considerable comment, in defence 
and in rebuttal : 

The connexion between biology and clinical medicine 
is a line I am fond of examining. A hospital is to me 
a cabinet and each patient a specimen. I study medi- 
cine by the methods I learned in studying natural 
history — and I believe it is the correct method. 

Two typewritten letters which Allen, as 
chairman of the executive committee, sent to 
Clevenger, are worth reproducing, as they af- 
ford us glimpses into the infancy of the now 
important Association of American Anatomists. 
The first is dated, December, 1889: 



222 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

In September, 1888, at the time of the meeting of 
the American Congress of Physicians in Washington, an 
Association of American Anatomists was organized. 
As Chairman of the Executive Committee of this As- 
sociation I extend to you a cordial invitation to be 
present at the next annual meeting in this city. 

It is proposed to meet in the biological department 
of the University of Pennsylvania, December 26th, 
27th, and 28th. Prof. Joseph Leidy will be in the 
Chair. Papers will be read by a number of distin- 
guished anatomists. 

You are cordially invited to attend these meetings as 
a guest of the Association, and to read a volunteer 
paper or exhibit specimens. 

The second of these communications is dated 
January, 1890: 

At a stated meeting of the Executive Committee 
of the Association of American Anatomists held De- 
cember 27 th, 1889, you were invited to become one of 
the original members of the Association. If you de- 
sire to accept this invitation will you kindly send me 
word to that effect? It is due to you to state that 
the call for the first meeting of the Association was is- 
sued by Dr A. H. P. Letjf, who was imperfectly in- 
formed regarding the personnel of the working anato- 
mists of the country. The Executive Committee is 
doing all that lies in its power to correct the errors 



The Philadelphia Group 223 

which were inseparable from the first plan of organi- 
zation, and earnestly request that you will join with 
them in directing a movement which it is believed will 
be of great service in the cultivation of anatomical sci- 
ence in America. 

It is proposed to hold an annual meeting of the As- 
sociation. Every third year this meeting will be held 
in Washington. All other times it will meet at time 
and place with the American Association of Natural- 
ists. 

I herewith enclose a program which may interest you. 

Clevenger's stock of information was sur- 
prisingly heterogeneous, and Harrison Allen's 
last letter to Clevenger — at least, the last that 
has been preserved — contains an interesting tech- 
nical query, but whether Clevenger evolved the 
terms himself or found them in the pages of 
Owen, we do not know. The letter is dated 
December, 1894: 

I am greatly interested in the pamphlet on Miso- 
phobia which you were kind enough to send me a short 
time ago. In it you allude to the 'ulnar fingers, radial 
fingers, etc' I have been giving some attention of late 
to the hand and have always been of the opinion that 
the manus of all mammals is divided into an ulnar and a 
radial set of fingers (toes). I did not know that any- 
one else had called attention to it. If not too much 



224 The Don Quiocote of Psychiatry 

trouble, will you kindly tell me what induced you to 
use these terms and where I can find the original de- 
scription of such classification? 

Of all the societies which Harrison Allen 
graced by his membership, he was most inti- 
mately connected with the Academy of Natural 
Sciences of Philadelphia, sending to it his first 
essay on bats for publication in its proceedings, 
and the following year joining it at the instiga- 
tion of Edward Drinker Cope, who was 
Allen's senior by only nine months, but already 
an active worker in science. Cope, like Alt .en, 
came of old Philadelphia stock: his great-grand- 
father, Caleb Cope, was the sturdy Quaker who 
defended Major Andre from mob violence; his 
grandfather, Thomas Pim Cope, founded the 
house of Cope Brothers, celebrated in the early 
mercantile annals of Philadelphia; his father, 
Alfred, a man of wealth and intellect, deter- 
mined to give him an excellent education, tho he 
must have known that the sons of rich men are 
often incapable of education. 

But Mr Cope had no trouble with Edward, 
who literally absorbed knowledge from his cra- 
dle-days. When seven years of age, Edward 
was taken by his father on a trip to Boston by 



The Philadelphia Group 225 

water, and on the way the boy kept a journal in 
which he discussed and illustrated the creatures 
he observed in the sea. At nine, his drawing and 
description of a caterpillar revealed the develop- 
ing naturalist. 

Ten years later, Cope was a full-fledged scien- 
tist, studying reptiles at the Smithsonian Institu- 
tion, under Spencer F. Baird. Within a few 
months he returned to Philadelphia, and worked 
in the Academy of Natural Sciences, cataloging 
the serpents and describing new species. In the 
autumn of 1859, when a small green-covered 
volume revolutionized biology, Cope was still in 
his teens, but the Academy of Natural Sciences 
of Philadelphia was already publishing his first 
scientific paper, On the primary division of the 
Salamandridce, with a description of two new 
species. Writing to his cousin at this time, 
young Cope referred to his maiden essay, and 
then casually remarked : 'Nobody in this country 
knows anything about Salamanders, but Profes- 
sor Baird and thy humble coz.' 

Before Cope was old enough to vote, he was a 
veteran of science. He modified systems with 
nonchalant assurance, and in an amazing com- 
munication published in his twentieth year, he 
says: 



226 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

In proposing the name Zaocys ... we are giving 
expression to an opinion long held by us as to the un- 
natural association of species in the so-called genus 
Coryphodon. ... In it we find cylindrical terrestrial 
species, united with compressed subarboricole species, 
upon a peculiarity whose value as an index of nature 
appears to us entirely imaginary. The very nature of 
the coryphodontian type of dentition, as distinguished 
from the isodontian and syncranterian, would lead us 
to infer its inconstancy. 

Cope never studied the cloak and suit business, 
medicine, or law, as his financial circumstances 
relieved him from the necessity of adopting a 
paying profession. But altho deprived of the 
'splendid spur of poverty,' he toiled ceaselessly 
in the pursuit of science. Even when he inher- 
ited more than a quarter of a million dollars, he 
worked on with unrelenting energy. At twenty- 
one, he was probably the foremost herpetologist 
in America. It is not surprising that at the age 
of twenty-three this phenomenon found himself 
a victim of overwork. The usual remedy was 
advised — a trip to Europe. He recuperated by 
visiting the museums of England, France, Hol- 
land, Austria, Prussia — everywhere examining 
reptiles. He looked over Joseph Hyrtl's 
skeletons of fishes, and was so delighted with the 



The Philadelphia Group 227 

professor's preparations that he purchased them. 
Cope, however, did not secure these specimens 
simply to label them and encase them in glass, 
but with this collection as a basis, he recast the 
classification of fishes. 

Upon his return to America, Cope, in his twen- 
ty-fourth year, was appointed professor of com- 
parative zoology and botany at Haverford Col- 
lege. Within three years, however, ill-health 
caused the youthful professor's resignation, and 
for the following twenty-two years he held no 
chair. But these years were filled with fruitful 
investigations which placed Cope in the front 
rank of paleontologists. As a private explorer, 
and as vertebrate paleontologist to the United 
States Geological and Geographical Survey, he 
roamed thru Ohio, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, 
New Mexico, Montana, Oregon, Texas, — 
everywhere west of the Missouri — and dead eons 
unrolled their secrets at his approach, and extinct 
animals lived again. In the chalky beds of these 
western states and territories, Cope did a giant's 
work, and was equally fertile in building up gen- 
eralizations, and in describing species new to sci- 
ence. Many of his bold deductions have not sur- 
vived the test of time, but the innumerable gen- 
era which he named, and the thousand unknown 



228 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

species which he brought to light, will always add 
their testimony to the genius and industry of 
Edward Drinker Cope. 

Like every scientific worker in the sixties, 
Cope was influenced by the doctrine of evolu- 
tion, and was among the first to apply its prin- 
ciples in his classifications. Cope, however, was 
rather a Lamarckian than a pure Darwinian, 
claiming that the 'survival of the fittest' does not 
explain the 'origin of the fittest,' and in seeking 
to discover and demonstrate the laws governing 
the origin of the fittest, he founded the Neo- 
Lamarckian School in America — and such men 
as Hyatt and Dall went to this school. 

Among the huge quartos and octavo volumes 
and endless essays which came from the tireless 
pen of Cope, may be mentioned Origin of the 
Fittest, Primary Factors of Organic Evolution, 
Batrachia of North America, and Vertebrata of 
Cretaceous Formations of the West, The 
Royal Geological Society of Great Britain gave 
him its medal, Heidelberg conferred upon him 
an honorary Ph.D., and when he accepted the 
chair of geology and mineralogy at the Univer- 
sity of Pennsylvania, later including zoology and 
comparative anatomy, he had long been acknowl- 



The Philadelphia Group 229 

edged as one of the greatest men of science that 
the American continent had produced. 

Unlike Leidy and Harrison Allen, Cope 
possessed aggressiveness, and he knew how to 
make and keep enemies. That unique litterateur, 
Isaac D' Israeli, wrote an interesting chapter, 
On the Influence of a Bad Temper in Criticism. 
He didn't know Cope and Marsh, but when 
these two professors thought of each other, they 
were certainly influenced by a bad temper. On 
occasion, Cope could be as pugnacious as Hux- 
ley — and between Cope and Huxley there ex- 
isted more coolness than cordiality. Concerning 
a fossil which opposed one of his deductions, 
Cope jestingly remarked, 'I wish you would 
throw that bone out of the window;' he felt a 
parent's fondness for his theories, and hesitated 
to disown them, even when they proved to be 
misbehaving. An authority on fossils does not 
necessarily become fossilized, but Cope did not 
believe in votes for women or negroes, and his 
tract on The Relation of the Sexes to Govern- 
ment, was distributed by that antiquarian soci- 
ety, the New York State Association Opposed 
to the Extension of Suffrage to Women. Cope 
was a man of exemplary character, and the his- 



230 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

tory of nineteenth century science cannot be writ- 
ten without his name. 

For several years Cope was editor of the 
'American Naturalist/ a periodical which experi- 
enced considerable difficulty with printers' bills, 
but whose monthly arrival was eagerly awaited 
by scientific workers. In its few advertising 
pages could be seen a placid and familiar face, 
whose reserved but benignant smile overlooked 
this underlined message: 'Lydia E. Pinkham's 
Vegetable Compound is a positive cure for all 
those painful complaints and weaknesses so com- 
mon to our best female population.' Editor 
Cope may not have admired the enterprising old 
lady, but the publishers needed her to help pay 
the aforesaid bills. It was thru the medium of 
this magazine that Cope and Clevenger became 
acquainted; Clevenger's contributions to the 
'American Naturalist' from 1881 to 1892 have 
already been noticed. In the issue of January, 
1885, Cope wrote a signed and appreciative re- 
view of Clevenger's Comparative Physiology 
and Psychology, 

Clevenger's personal letters to us contain fre- 
quent references to his Philadelphia group of 
friends, especially Cope, and we will introduce 
these reminiscences here: 






The Philadelphia Group 231 

In rattling off these letters of transmittal to you I 
feel they are often carelessly worded, and show propen- 
sity to both prolixity and repetition of jocularities, and 
maybe they realize Spitzka's warning that I was fall- 
ing into my anecdotage. 

When I don't have to use care, as in talking to 
friends, the colloquial garrulity and carelessness is a 
comfort, and enables things the stilted conventional 
writing does not. So please overlook blunders of all 
kinds and let me talk as I used to do to my friends of 
old in scientific ranks. 

Ed Cope of Philadelphia was one of these. He was 
professor of natural sciences in the Pennsylvania Uni- 
versity, and was constantly fishing for chances to push 
me, and get me near him. He had me appointed pro- 
fessor of biology in the university, but I foolishly for- 
feited the chair by thinking the salary of $500 a year 
too small, as I had a big family and could not see my 
way clear to go on that sum. My family many times 
since then has lived on less, when my rackets with poli- 
ticians lost me an appointment, but we never know 
what is in store for us. Provost Pepper promised to 
confer an A.M. on me, at Cope's solicitation. I was 
mystified by delays by Pepper, until a friend told me 
it was the usual thing to give $100 for the degree. I 
could not spare the $100, and would have felt cheap 
had I paid anything for it. Cope also came within one 
vote of getting me the superintendency of the Penn- 



232 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

sylvania General Hospital for the Insane. Cope al- 
ways gave my articles first place in his American 
Naturalist. 

Cope made three fortunes, and lost two of them, when 
I begged him to go slow and keep his beautiful home 
corner on Pine and 21st Street, for his family. One 
of the twin houses he had stocked with geological speci- 
mens, mainly fossils. He was a delightful friend in 
every way. Absolutely without guile or false pride. 
He was like Leidy in approachableness and unpretend- 
ing. 

Cope was a brilliant orator, and once in the Tech- 
nical institute in Boston I heard him and Alexander 
Agassiz debating about the number of vertebrae in a 
fossil, and the evolutionary question came up. This 
was in August 1880, and Cope argued on evolutionary 
lines, while Agassiz was a 'trimmer' like his father; 
both were eloquent and held attention, but the differ- 
ence was evident in Cope being absolutely sincere, and 
Agassiz was untruthful, insincere and a special pleader 
for religious prejudice. 

Your admiration for Prof. E. D. Cope touched me 
deeply, for he was a man I loved, and he desired all 
good things for me. I ought to have many letters 
from him saved up, but fear that I may have destroyed 
most of them ; if not, I shall be happy to send them to 
you. 



The Philadelphia Group 233 

He was plain, unassuming, and as I told you before, 
eloquent, full of his subject, appreciative of others' 
knowledge, never jealous," but even praised rivals and 
those jealous of him, if any excellence in them. Prof. 
Marsh on the other hand was contemptibly vain, prig- 
gish, snobbish in dress and manner, always finding fault 
with Cope. 

Ed Cope was plain Ed, and western in manner, ut- 
terly without false pride, no airs or assumption of su- 
periority ever. Tireless worker, he had the house three 
or four stories next his residence filled from cellar to 
garret with his findings of fossils, — arranged nearly 
as could be in eras from lowest to highest. Most of his 
valuable discoveries were in the Cretaceous of Wyom- 
ing. It was there he found the eohippus the connection 
between carnivores and herbivores, a little fox-like ani- 
mal with ginglymoid joints like those of the modern 
horse, the 5-toed. He had it mounted in a plaster 
frame and setting, and explained it to me as we were 
dining at his house in 1882. 

I remember I accused him of being involved in his 
previous metaphysical studies, and once in the Open 
Court we got into a very good-humored discussion of 
the soul. He had some way of making spirit originate 
matter, while I was agnostic and held that while it 
would be comfortable to be sure of this, we always 
landed where we started in any attempt to explain such 
things. 



234 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

In Philadelphia there was an harmonious coterie 
made up of Cope, Leidy, Powell, Harrison Allen, 
and other sincere truth-seekers. 

My trips to Philadelphia were pleasant ones as you 
may imagine when university professors came to the 
Colonnade Hotel (where I stopped always) when they 
read my arrival in the next day's paper, and insisted 
on my coming to their homes while in town. I much 
preferred Cope's house and he always chuckled when he 
got to me first. But I never went there till he came 
for me, as I did not want to force my welcome. 

Lots of fine chaps in those days. One was the fa- 
mous head of the United States geological surveys, 
Major Powell. Another was Harrison Allen, whose 
letters I sent to you. He was a wholes ouled, honest, 
hard-working practitioner who loved truth for its own 
sake. He impressed everyone as a sincere gentleman, 
free from ostentation and probably over-modest. He 
was inventive, and made able deductions in biological 
studies. Professors Cope, Leidy, Powell, and I were 
very fond of him. 

Then there was the great Leidy, smiling, handsome, 
modest ; chuck full of biologic lore, with his Rhizopods 
under way. Friends asked him how fishing was when 
he went to saw-mill dams to net rhizopods. He pub- 
lished his big engravings of amebae and their cousins, 
thru the Smithsonian Institution; guess it must have 
cost $50,000 to engrave and bind. They can't be had 
now, but were $10 each at first. 




E. D. COPE 




JOSEPH LeCONTE 



The Philadelphia Group 235 

Leidy presided at the meeting of the Philadelphia 
Academy of Natural Sciences when I made my speech 
about distribution of valves in the veins. I spoke 20 
minutes, and Cope followed me in a grand compli- 
mentary address of an hour and a half, beginning: 
'Here is an instance of the evolutionary doctrine mak- 
ing simple what was a baffling puzzle to anatomists and 
physiologists.' He elaborated the matter in connection 
with his own work, and finally announced that I would 
have an article on this subject in the January Amer- 
ican Naturalist, entitled Disadvantages of the Upright 
Position. 

Cope's correspondence with Clevenger — like 
Harrison Allen's — began in October, 1880. 
That modern convenience, the secretary- stenog- 
rapher, had not yet been evolved into indispensa- 
bility, and Cope's letters, whether brief or 
lengthy, are in his own handwriting: 

Yours with the MS. and the blocks are received. 
The paper cannot be used before the January or Feb- 
ruary number, on account of the number of articles 
on hand; we will insert as soon as possible. The pub- 
lishers say they will pay the $6.00 if you will let them 
take a set of electro copies, as they must have them in 
case of reprint. How does this strike you? I am 
getting somewhat shy of asking them to increase their 
free-list, which is pretty long now, but if you can get 



236 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

us a subscriber somewhere among your acquaintances, 
I will do it with an easier conscience (will do it any- 
how). 

Scientists do not have to teach anything sub rosa un- 
less, unfortunately, their bread and butter depends 
on it. The time is however not far distant when bread 
and butter can be had without anyone's sacrificing his 
convictions or even suppressing them. Anyone who con- 
tributes to this state of things is a public benefactor. 
Evolution, well and clearly taught, will put an end to 
ultra-sectarianism and classic absurdities more prompt- 
ly than anything else. People will take facts in pref- 
erence to fancies when they can only see them, and it 
is our privilege and pleasure to try and make them see. 
There are various fields in which this can be done, em- 
bryology, physiology and paleontology being the fields 
of ultimate demonstration; to all of which anatomy is 
the front door, so to speak. 

In Cope's second letter to Clevenger, dated 
November, 1880, we are treated to the spectacle 
of two learned philosophers discussing a 'finan- 
cial proposition,' involving the sum of six dol- 
lars : 

Yours received. I do not exactly understand your 
financial proposition, as its various points do not ap- 
pear to be entirely consistent. You wish to pay your 
subscription to the Naturalist ($4. per annum), but 






The Philadelphia Group - 237 

you wish also to be credited with $6.00 (18 months 
subscription American Naturalist). Now that means 
that you will take a year or 18 months of the Nat- 
uralist for use of the cuts, does it not? Explain so 
that I may know what to say to publishers. 

Your account of the Marsh affair sounds very fa- 
miliar. M. is a very peculiar man. I. constantly have 
offers from his men to employ with me. Scott, of the 
Princeton exploring party, has just returned from 3 
years in Heidelberg, tells queer stories of M. and 
doesn't like him any better than I do. 

Cope, in his communication to Clevenger of 
May, 1881, asserts his priority over Filhol, and 
alludes to his altercation with Huxley : 

Your card is received. The points made by Filhol 
were made by myself mostly,7 to 3 years ago, in Govern- 
ment Publications. Some years ago, I had a slight skir- 
mish with Professor Huxley and since then he has tried 
the ignoring and silencing process on me with some ef- 
fect. It depends on American Naturalists whether this 
shall be effective or not. See April Naturalist, p. 340. 

I send you two papers which contain some of the 
points I have made — most of them more striking than 
Filhol's. 

N. B. I find I am out of extras of the papers in 
question; so I refer you to the places which you can 
easily find. Annual Report of the U. S. Geological 



238 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

Survey, F. V. Hayden, 1872, p. 644 to bottom of 
647 ; especially p. 645. Final Report, G. M. Wheeler, 
vol. IV, pt. II (Paleontology of New Mexico) from p. 
273 to p. 282 where the subject is still more fully set 
forth (1877). Filhol's publications are all later, 
and are less conclusive. They are also mainly tech- 
nical, so the reader has to draw his own conclusions. 

In the early months of 1884, Cope sent the fol- 
lowing note to Clevenger : 

The directorship of the Pennsylvania Hospital for 
the Insane, lately vacated by the death of Dr Kirk- 
bride, is vacant. How would you like to apply for 
it? Your Pennsylvania birth might help you. Apply 
to the board of managers of the Pennsylvania Hospital 
for the Insane, West Pennsylvania, if you wish to get 
the place. 

Cope's reference to Clevenger's 'Pennsyl- 
vania birth,' was merely a geographical error, for 
surely he was not so provincial as to imagine that 
all good men must be born in Philadelphia. 
Cope busied himself in Clevenger's behalf, but 
Clevenger had the luck of those men who lose 
by one vote. In the spring of 1893, however, 
Cope was able to send Clevenger a card of con- 
gratulations concerning the Kankakee superin- 
tendency — but he did not forget he was an ed- 



The American Naturalist. 

A Popular Illustrated Magazine of Natural History and Travel. 

Letters on busincsj connected with the Amckican Natukalkt should be addressed Co the Publishers, McCau-a Si 

Stavbiy, 237.0 Dock Street. Philadelphia, Pa, 
Terau of Naturalist, I 

I, «j > year. { - 

2100 Pine St., Philadelphia, 2j/iL<(? >■.... iSS'Ur 




LETTER FROM E. D. COPE 



239 



240 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

itor. The mind that grappled with the most in- 
tricate problems in herpetology, ichthyology and 
mammalogy, could condescend to 'scout for sub- 
scribers.' Cope wrote: 

Glad to hear of your appointment. Does the insti- 
tution take such journals as the Naturalist? We are 
on the scout for subscribers ! I send you a late screed 
on primitive man. 

In the foregoing pages, incidental mention has 
been made of Dr Pepper, but no account of the 
sons of the university would be complete without 
his dominating and vigorous personality. Wil- 
liam Pepper was certainly born in Philadelphia, 
in 1843 — the same year that Clevenger was born 
in Florence. Each had a distinguished father, 
but otherwise their paths diverged. Clevenger's 
journey was so devious that he himself did not 
know where he was going, but Pepper went 
straight to his goal. There was nothing vision- 
ary about Pepper; he did not dwell in the clouds, 
but at 1811 Spruce Street. Current morality, 
including Newport society, did not revolt him, 
and instead of attempting to improve the Re- 
publican Party, he voted for it. He was never 
a voice crying in the wilderness — he believed in 
a chorus. He marched in the van of his genera- 



The Philadelphia Group 241 

tion — but he never stepped ahead of it. He was 
a leader — but not a reformer. 

As a practitioner and consultant, as a teacher 
of clinical medicine, as a research worker, and as 
an editor and author, Pepper made his mark, but 
it was as provost of the University of Pennsyl- 
vania that he became the most celebrated man in 
Philadelphia. Whoever reads the Reminiscences 
of a Provost, written by Pepper's predecessor, 
Charles J. Stille, will see what an impotent, 
meaningless position it was prior to 1881, but 
Pepper made it a place of power. He was a 
strong man whose limitations were his fortune, 
for he believed Philadelphia was the American 
paradise, and that the center of that heaven was 
the University, and that the pivot 01 the Uni- 
versity was the provost ship. 

With his social standing, his faultless dress, 
his gracious manner, and the 'Pepper smile' 
which entered into the traditions of Philadelphia, 
he moved mountains. The University needed 
money, and Pepper admitted he could plead for 
money as a man pleads for his life. He was a 
magnificent beggar, and no one else unloosened 
so many Philadelphia purse-strings. Men who 
swore that Pepper would never see a dollar of 
theirs, succumbed to his suavity, and contributed 



242 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

thousands. As the prince of persuasiveness, he 
had no rivals. Whatever he desired, he obtained 
— whether it was an ancient Moorish vase from a 
Mexican collector who vowed he would never 
part with it, or a new museum from an obdurate 
city council. He wheedled the best teachers in 
the country to joining his Faculty at the lowest 
salaries ; financiers and politicians he met on their 
own ground, and came away victorious. He 
could bamboozle people beautifully. 

His plans were so multitudinous that to carry 
them into effect he was forced to consort with all 
sorts of individuals, but Pepper was not squeam- 
ish, and he never hesitated to make use of a man 
simply because that man happened to be his en- 
emy. As a matter of fact, Pepper was too busy 
to waste any time in bickering. As a vertebrate 
paleontologist, Cope has been ranked with Cu- 
vier, Owen and Huxley ; and such was the suc- 
cess of Pepper's conciliatory adroitness, that he 
was compared to those wily cardinals of the sev- 
enteenth century, Richelieu and Mazarin. 'I 
am seeking,' confessed Pepper, 'so many favors 
from so many different people in so many dif- 
ferent directions, which is all very complicated, 
I feel like a juggler with many plates spinning, 
and all must be touched at the right spot.' 




/dtp- a?-t%~~~<*Sr* 







^<**^j&*y^y<^ ^^ f> 



V&L 



^J<zr ft* 



4^p~C^&~<^&~+*^** 



y 






LETTER FROM WILLIAM PEPPER 

to E. D. Cope, concerning Clevenger's honorary A.M. Sent by Cope to 
Clevenger, and containing Cope's signature in the upper right-hand corner 




243 



244 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

Pepper was ambitious, but his ambition was 
never personal — it was for his ideal University. 
When he began to collect contributions for a new 
undertaking, he headed the subscription-list with 
a liberal donation from his own pocket — in this 
way he gave away nearly half a million dollars 
which he had earned in the practice of his pro- 
fession. Pepper's administrative duties checked 
his research-work, but he kept up an enormous 
consulting practice which took him all over the 
country. No other physician in America was 
known to so many conductors. 

Pepper's triumphs were not all gained by 
smiles and suavity; often he was forced to fight 
like a titan for his plans. His life was spent in 
presiding over meetings, and after one of these 
meetings he uttered these characteristic words: 
'I gathered up the Faculty into one hand last 
night and swung it as a stick.' His passion for 
work was almost pathologic, but the only rem- 
edy for his rare disease was more work. Unlike 
Paul La Fargue, he did not believe in the right 
to be lazy. 

At rare intervals, Pepper experimented with 
a vacation, but he could not enjoy rest. One 
summer, while recuperating at Mrs Hearst's 
home in Pleasanton, he declared: 'It is all very 



The Philadelphia Group 245 

well to prate of contentment and pleasure, but I 
am debauched by affairs, and know no peace ex- 
cept in the midst of full activity.' Pepper was 
a commander who could set groups of men into 
motion, and while one group was working for 
better boulevards and purer water for Philadel- 
phia, other groups were excavating Babylon, 
Egypt, Italy, and Nippur, because Pepper so 
willed it — for his museums. 

It had been Pepper's habit to work early and 
late, but the time came when he would tire at 
sundown. Pepper was an oak that bent beneath 
the long-continued storms of overwork. Every- 
one could see the premature wrinkles on his brow, 
but only a few knew that Pepper was falling in 
his prime. But this self-controlled man did not 
whimper. 'I did it .deliberately,' he declared, 
'and am not sorry, but must pay the price.' He 
was the embodiment of Henley's Invictus. 

Even in the closing years, Pepper refused to 
drink from the cup of indolence. 'If it costs me 
my life,' he said, 'I will see this thru. Now don't 
tease me about it ; arguing makes me nervous and 
lessens my strength. I must go on till the end.' 
Pepper did not work with any hope of future re- 
ward, and his ringing words on this subject 



246 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

should be nailed on every church-door in 
Christendom : 

It would make not a stiver of difference if I were to 
learn sure that death is to be the end-all and the be-all 
of the business ; the work is here ; there is value in it. 
It will help others ; we cannot let it alone undone, or 
we should be more unhappy than as it is. Let us 
leave teleology alone. 

Pepper had many admirers, but his achieve- 
ments are his most eloquent eulogists. He cre- 
ated the Free Library of Philadelphia, and the 
Free Museum of Science and Art, and when he 
founded the Philadelphia Commercial Museums, 
he opened them with an exposition which the 
President of the United States attended — after 
a personal interview with this irresistible or- 
ganizer. As provost, William Pepper estab- 
lished the following university departments: the 
Wharton School of Finance and Economy, the 
Biologic Department, the Department of Philos- 
ophy, the Veterinary Department, the Training 
School for Nurses, the Department of Physical 
Education, the University Library, the Gradu- 
ate Department for Women, the Department of 
Hygiene, the Department of Architecture, the 
Wis tar Institute of Anatomy and Biology, the 



The Philadelphia Group 247 

William Pepper Laboratory of Clinical Medi- 
cine, and the Department of Archeology and 
Paleontology. Benjamin Franklin laid the 
corner-stone of this temple, but William Pep- 
per was its chief builder. 

Pepper's clinical and biographical papers are 
well-written, and his two addresses on Higher 
Medical Education — the first, delivered October, 
1877, and the second, October, 1893 — were im- 
portant contributions to the subject, and are still 
valuable for ideas and data, but his most notable 
literary work is the System of Medicine which 
appeared, 1885-6, in five massive volumes. It 
was an imposing undertaking, which could have 
been carried to completion only by a man like 
Pepper or Gross — a man of equanimous tem- 
perament and magnetic personality, with a wide 
acquaintanceship. The leaders of American 
medicine contributed to this magnificent System 
which has now been superseded, but not sur- 
passed, by that of Osler — and except where 
Pepper's System has become antiquated, we pre- 
fer it to Osler's. 

Pepper issued the original prospectus of the 
work in 1881, and among those to whom he ap- 
plied was Clevenger, altho Dr Clevenger's di- 
ploma was then only two years old. Pepper's 



248 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

first communication to Clevenger is dated No- 
vember, 1881: 

The accompanying Prospectus will explain itself. I 
undertook the work with reluctance, but the cordial 
favor and unanimous cooperation of all whom I have 
invited to write for it has been very gratifying to me. 
The complete success of the work is now assured, and 
much of the material has been allotted; but some very 
interesting and important chapters are still unas- 
signed. 

I write now to ask if you will be good enough to un- 
dertake the preparation of the articles on Alcoholism, 
Opium Habit, Toxic Neuroses. See page 7. The MS 
will not be expected before October, 1882, so that ample 
time exists for the preparation of the articles. 

Pray send me a half-rate night telegram at my cost. 

Ten months later — September, 1882 — Pepper 
wrote as follows to Clevenger: 

In answer to your request I would state in confi- 
dence, that as your articles form part of the last vol- 
ume of the St/stem of Medicine, I can allow you until 
March 1st, 1883, on or before which time it is essential 
I should receive them. 

This shows that Clevenger had accepted Pep- 
per's offer, but desired an extension of time for 




WILLIAM PEPPER 



The Philadelphia Group 249 

his articles. Then the new time arrived, but 
Clevenger's manuscripts were not on the way 
to Philadelphia. In the meanwhile, however, he 
had seen Pepper, and told him what valuable ma- 
terial he had on alcoholism. During June, 1883, 
Pepper wrote to Clevenger: 

After you left I reflected on what you had said about 
your valuable material on Alcoholism, Would it not 
suit you better to write that article and the one on 
Toxic Neuroses from mineral substances? 

This would enable me to get Dr Kane of New York 
to write up Opium, Chloral, Tea, etc., and he could 
probably make a very good companion article for 
yours. If it suits you as well, it will suit me better. 
Please write me at once. You could have until April 
1st, 1884, to complete your MSS. 

But it seems Clevenger was unwilling to re- 
linquish any of his topics, for tho he had not done 
one, he believed he could complete all. In the 
following month — July, 1883 — Pepper was sup- 
posed to be abstaining from work at Newport, 
but evidently he took a supply of postage-stamps 
with him. Clevenger, who was at Dunning, re- 
ceived this letter of explanation and congratu- 
lations : 

That is right. I will give you for Opium and Toxic 
Neuroses till April 1st, 1884. I am glad you antici- 



250 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

pate a trip thru those regions, and hope you add what- 
ever valuable information you may acquire on these 
subjects. I congratulate you on being so situated that 
}'ou can look forward to steady scientific work. The 
authorities are certainly to be warmly applauded. 

Another spring arrived, but Clevenger's ar- 
ticles did not, and on the twenty-fifth of May, 
1884, Pepper sent Clevenger a note which was 
more categorical than congratulatory: 

Since our meeting the first volume of our System of 
Medicine is being pushed rapidly thru the press. I 
must now know just when to expect the manuscript 
for the three latter volumes. I write to ask you to 
favor me by return mail with a line stating exactly 
what you are preparing for me, when I may count 
upon the manuscript without fail, and how many pages 
it will make. 

All this was too definite for Clevenger; 
harassed with a variety of plans, and wrangling 
with Mike McDonald's gang, he was in no state 
of mind to prepare monographs for America's 
first System of Medicine — and at the eleventh 
hour he told Pepper so. Pepper may have been 
annoyed, but he replied with equanimity: 

It would have been easier for me had you notified me 
of your inability to prepare your articles as soon as 



The Philadelphia Group 251 

you became convinced of it. I shall, however, imme- 
diately secure some successor, tho I am sorry we shall 
not have you among our list of authors. 

So the final volume appeared, without Clev- 
enger's contributions, but with gratifying words 
by William Pepper. In the valedictory pref- 
ace, he gave the date of publication of each vol- 
ume, and added these comments : 

In view of the delays inevitable in large and compli- 
cated literary enterprises, such unusual punctuality re- 
flects credit alike on the zeal of the contributors and 
the energy and resources of the publishers. The du- 
ties of the Editor have been lightened and rendered 
agreeable by the unvarying courtesy and cordial co- 
operation of all connected with him in the undertak- 
ing; and he has been amply rewarded by the realiza- 
tion of his hopes in the favorable reception accorded 
to the successive volumes by the profesison on both 
sides of the Atlantic. The plan of the work has been 
strictly adhered to, and the articles promised have 
been furnished without exception, altho in a very few 
cases circumstances required a change in the author- 
ship. . . . 

In conclusion, the Editor feels that it is a subject of 
congratulation that thru the combination of so many 
leading members of the profession it has been rendered 
possible to present in this work, for the first time, the 



252 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

entire subject of practical medicine treated in a man- 
ner truly representative of the American School. 

In Clevenger's place, Pepper secured the dis- 
tinguished James Cornelius Wilson, who con- 
tributed the chapters on Alcoholism, The Opium 
Habit and Kindred Affections, and Chronic 
Lead-Poisoning ; these essays do not betray the 
circumstances of their origin, for tho conceived 
in haste and brought forth under stress, they are 
choice in language and rich in scholarship. Sev- 
eral years later, Clevenger's articles on Alcohol- 
ism and Morphinism and Other Addictions, ap- 
peared in the second volume of his Medical 
Jurisprudence of Insanity, but both in diction 
and in information, they are less meritorious than 
Wilson's. 

Clevenger's absence from Pepper's System 
of Medicine was like staying away from a family 
reunion, for many of his friends were represented 
in its five thousand octavo pages : James Nevins 
Hyde wrote on variola, varicella, and erysipelas ; 
H. D. Schmidt wrote on dengue and contrib- 
uted to the diseases of the nervous system; 
Joseph Leidy wrote a treatise on intestinal 
worms; Harrison Allen wrote on diseases of 
the nasal passages; E. C. Dudley wrote on dis- 



The Philadelphia Group 253 

placements of the uterus ; E. C. Seguin wrote on 
the general semeiology of the nervous system; 
and Charles K. Mills and E. C. Spitzka also 
contributed generously to the neurological vol- 
ume. 



CHAPTER VIII 
FRIENDS IN NEW YORK 

HAD Pepper edited a System of Surgery 
in the eighties, he would probably have en- 
listed the services of that rising young surgeon, 
Roswell Park. Dr Park was born in Con- 
necticut, but received his academic education in 
the Racine College of Wisconsin, and his med- 
ical training at the Chicago Medical College. 
When Clevenger matriculated at this institu- 
tion, Park, altho nine years Clevenger's junior, 
was already a member of the faculty, in the de- 
partment of anatomy. Later, he lectured on 
surgery at the Rush Medical College. 

Clevenger and Roswell Park frequently 
met at the Chicago Biological Society, of which 
Park was secretary. One of the mimeographed 
announcements which Park sent to the members 
has been preserved: 

The regular meeting of the Biological Society will 
be held Wednesday, May 5th, 8 p. m. at the Tremont 
House. Dr P. S. Hayes will report a Case of Exoph- 

254 



Friends in New York 255 

thalmic Goitre — fatal. The Secretary will exhibit a 
case of the same disease, — and also report three Un- 
usual Cases of Poisoning. Dr Clevenger will report 
a Case of Poisoning from the External Use of Cor- 
rosive Sublimate. The Committee on the Deleterious 
Action of Glucose as an Adulteration will report. 

In 1883 — the central date of this narrative — 
Edward Mott Moore, one of the celebrated sur- 
geons of the day, resigned his chair at the Buf- 
falo Medical College, which immediately ap- 
pealed to Moses Gunn — Chicago's surgical over- 
seer — for a successor. Professor Gunn sug- 
gested Roswell Park, then in his thirty-first 
year, and both Park and the College accepted 
the offer. However, when the new professor ar- 
rived in Buffalo, he found this chilly welcome in 
the pages of the Buffalo Medical Journal: 

Professor Moore's resignation is a loss to the pro- 
fession of this city as well as to the College. It is but 
fair to say of him that he is recognized as the ablest 
professor of surgery in this country. We learn that 
Dr Rosweee Park of Chicago has been appointed in 
the place thus vacated. We fail to ascertain, after 
repeated inquiries in surgical circles, that the new ap- 
pointee brings to this responsible position any exten- 
sive experience or reputation. 



256 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

In the light of subsequent events, these caus- 
tic comments are amusing, for Roswell Park 
became Buffalo's big man, looming like a colos- 
sus above his colleagues, as Byron Robinson 
did at the Toledo Medical College. Besides be- 
ing president of such professional organizations 
as the American Surgical Association, and the 
Medical Society of the State of New York, and 
director of the New York State Cancer Labora- 
tory, he was president also of the Philharmonic 
Society, and — what was more substantial — of the 
Spencer Lens Company. 

Park was the author of a text-book on Mod- 
ern Surgery, and in addition to technical con- 
tributions, he delved into medico-historical fields, 
writing various essays, and compiling an 
Epitome of the History of Medicine. As a 
writer he possessed no special talents, and his 
medico-historical work is like that of the Boston 
surgeon, James Gregory Mumford — worth 
while, but not notable. 

In 1887, Moses Gunn rested from his labors, 
and the chair of surgery at Rush Medical Col- 
lege stood empty; but soon it was filled by 
Charles Theodore Parkes, a man whose 
boundless enthusiasm for operative surgery was 
fostered by his unusual physical strength. Pro- 



Friends in New York 257 

f essor Parkes was a pioneer investigator of gun- 
shot wounds of the intestines. He would anes- 
thetize dogs, shoot them several times in the belly, 
then perform laparotomy, followed by closure 
of the perforations — and 'the number of recov- 
eries in his animals,' says J. H. Ethebidge, 'as- 
tounded the medical profession, and led to fur- 
ther experiments in all parts of the world.' Huge 
of limb and heavy, but carrying himself with the 
grace of the all-around athlete and sportsman, 
Parkes moved like a ruddy-faced giant among 
the diminutive nurses and assistants of his clinic. 
Death seemed far off from that magnificent 
physique, but in 1891, several months before he 
reached his forty-ninth birthday, he was stricken 
by the most sudden, silent, subtle murderer 
known to medicine — Pneumonia. 

That same day, Roswell Park received this 
telegram from Professor Etheridge: 

Parkes died this morning. Can I present your name 
as his successor? Biggest place in America today. 

It was a critical moment for Roswell Park. 
Compared with the Rush Medical College, the 
medical department of the University of Buffalo 
was a place of minor importance. Park carried 



Br. Rgswell Park 

ffiegs ledoe to announce thai he has aczepied ihe Gr c air 
cf ^ivrgery in ih\e T^ea'ical ^department of the Xdnioersiiy 
of ffijffalo, and will consequently remove to that city 
during the latter pari cf jffugust 

Chicago, yuly, 18S3. 

h/cZ/ *m /bury 'tit* trtsfif a. cs/^y 




ROSWELL PARK'S ANNOUNCEMENT 

of his removal to Buffalo, containing his request for a copy of Clevengeb's 
paper on the thyroid and ths-mus. 



258 



Friends in New York 259 

this telegram around with him, and showed it to 
certain parties. He said nothing about Buf- 
falo's lesser reputation, but he hinted that unless 
more adequate equipment and new buildings 
were forthcoming, he would deem it expedient 
to answer the telegram in the affirmative. Happy 
is the man whom an institution fears to lose. 
Park was assured that his desires would receive 
prompt attention, and he decided to stay where 
he was. But Etheridge was not easily balked, 
and the wires from Chicago to Buffalo waxed hot 
with his telegrams. But in this instance his per- 
sistence was of no avail, and his final telegram 
said: 

My heart is broken. We will have you in a few 
years. I never abandoned anything more reluctantly. 
I love you very much. 

So Roswell Park remained in Buffalo, and 
the passing years brought him increasing respect 
and reputation. When William McKinley 
was wounded there, all eyes turned to Dr Park ; 
he became a national figure, and it was an un- 
dying disappointment to him that he was unable, 
in spite of all his efforts, to save the President's 
life. On the twenty-fifth anniversary of Park's 
professorship, a banquet was arranged in his 



260 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

honor, and the men who attended were ample 
testimony to the position which Roswell Park 
had reached, for Dennis and Brewer came from 
New York, and Crile from Cleveland; Chicago 
sent Billings and Bevan, and Richardson 
journeyed from Boston; out of the northwest 
came Mayo, and from the south, Matas and 
Welch. 

The present writer claims to be the champion 
symposiumist of America, having conducted and 
published symposiums on humanitarians (1908), 
euthanasia (1913), sterilization of the unfit 
(1914), drugs (1916), obstetrical abnormalities 
(1916), and the medical profession (1917). 
None of these collections of diverse opinion ex- 
hibited more dissimilitude than the Symposium 
on Euthanasia — Shall the state permit science to 
put a painless end to a hopeless disease? As 
usual, the question aroused heat and hysteria; 
most of the physicians proclaimed it their duty 
to keep life alive, no matter how painful and un- 
desirable that life is to its possessor, and no mat- 
ter how persistently and piteously the incurable 
or deformed sufferer begs for the waters of 
Lethe. But others came to the defense of 
euthanasia, arguing that we have no right to force 
life upon a patient when that life is one con- 



Friends in New York 261 

tinuous round of agony, and that it is the pro- 
fession's duty to alleviate pain and not to prolong 
death-tortures. Among those who took this view 
was Roswell Park, whose contribution con- 
tained the sensational confession that he not only 
believed in euthanasia, but practised it: 

I know that others have assumed the responsibility, 
which I have myself taken in more than one case, of pro- 
ducing euthanasia, when, in the terminal stage of life, 
a patient was suffering the tortures 'of the damned,' 
and has pleaded for a method of escape, the pleadings 
being seconded by the family. Under these circum- 
stances I think that to administer a lethal dose of mor- 
phine or chloroform is to 'do as one would be done by.' 
I have been told by high legal authority that to do 
this is equivalent, in the eyes of the law, to commit- 
ting murder. Nevertheless no one need allow his con- 
science to trouble him on this score. I am positive 
that it is one of the kindest acts that a medical man 
can ever perform. 

For this enlightened standpoint, Park was 
deluged with a shower of abusive epithets, and 
altho he was a minister's son, he was accused of 
violating the precepts of religion. Roswell 
Park invariably side-stepped theology; in his 
letter to Clevenger, dated July, 1894, he says: 



OR WILLIAM A. HAMMOND 43 West 54 th St.. New York 

CONSULTATIOM HOURS FROM 

'"» lOSP.M. ^^ J f-S 



l^, ^/~ /%Z Ayf~ i 

LETTER FROM WILLIAM A. HAMMOND 



262 



Friends in New York 268 

I am very much obliged to you for writing to me as 
you did about that book. It was one which my Father 
published not long after I was born; and, had I not 
several copies now on hand, I should be desirous of se- 
curing the one of which you write. As it is, I have no 
use for it, and can only thank you warmly for your 
kindness in writing to remind me about it. I am my- 
self too deep in medicine to delve in theology; and, 
whatever else you may see from my pen, you will see 
nothing that deals with eschatology or anything of that 
kind. 

I have read and often recommended your book upon 
the spine, and have wondered many times what had be- 
come of you, and it has done me good to get your letter. 
In your many polemics against corruption and abuse 
in asylums and hospitals, I have watched you with 
envious eyes, and have wished you success many times 
when you did not realize it. 

I trust that you may even yet come out on top and 
maintain, as you always will, the honor and dignity of 
our profession. 

Among Clevenger's papers we find this 
hastily-scribbled note, 'Won't you go to Man- 
hattan Beach this afternoon with me? If so, 
meet me at the foot of 22nd St., North River, at 
3 p. m.,' from one of the most interesting per- 
sonalities of the time, — William Alexander 
Hammond. Born in Maryland, and graduating 



264 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

in New York, Hammond next spent some 
months in Philadelphia and Maine, then joined 
the army where he served for over a decade, re- 
tiring in his thirty-first year to return to Mary- 
land as professor of anatomy and physiology in 
the university. 

But the following year there was war, and 
Hammond resigned his professorship to re-enter 
the army. Armies have inflexible rules, and in- 
flexible rules are invariably stupid. Because 
Hammond had left the army in 1859, he lost his 
rank; his eleven years of service did not count, 
and he was placed at the foot of a roll of inex- 
perienced assistant surgeons. 

But he was not to remain inconspicuous long. 
A vigorous Surgeon- General was the crying 
need of the hour. The nation's medical depart- 
ment, organized to look after fifteen thousand 
men, suddenly found itself confronted with the 
task of taking care of a million. A consultation 
was held between the Secretary of War, the re- 
doubtable Edwin McMasters Stanton, and 
the Sanitary Commission, composed of such dis- 
tinguished physicians as Cornelius It. Agnew, 
Wolcott Gibbs, and William Holme Van 
Buren. 'Well,' asked Stanton, 'whom would 
you suggest?' — which was extraordinary gra- 



Friends in New York 265 

ciousness on his part, for this iron-willed man 
rarely allowed suggestions. The members of the 
Sanitary Commission glanced thru the list, and 
Van Buren put his hand on the name of Ham- 
mond, saying, 'That is the man whom the Sani- 
tary Commission would like to have. I know 
him, and served with him, and the profession has 
confidence in him.' 

Van Buren's finger toyed with destiny that 
day, for the surgeon-generalcy has ever been a 
slippery place. The first who climbed to it, 
Benjamin Church, slipped into oblivion and 
disgrace. The second, the famous John Mor- 
gan, was soon dismissed by Congress, and tho he 
published a Vindication, and was acquitted by 
a later court of inquiry, he never recovered from 
the ignominy. His successor, William Ship- 
pen, Jr, was also acquitted — but not before he 
faced serious accusations at court martial. 

Hammond, however, was not an historico- 
medical student — altho he was so enthusiastic 
about Servetus that he intended to write a book, 
burning John Calvin in ink. But the fate of 
his early predecessors did not deter him from ac- 
cepting the surgeon-generalship — with the rank 
of brigadier-general. Hammond was large and 
loud — when he entered a room, he filled it. He 



266 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

looked splendid in his uniform. He began to 
work at once. He found that the more prev- 
alent malaria grew, the higher was the price of 
quinine, so he announced that the Medical De- 
partment would manufacture its own quinine — 
and down came the price of quinine. Hammond 
created the Army Medical Museum, projected 
that magnificent undertaking, the Medical and 
Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion, 
and suggested the establishment of the Surgeon- 
General's Library, but here he was balked by 
Secretary Stanton, who flatly declared such a 
library unnecessary. 

In fact, Stanton didn't like Hammond — just 
as Richelieu didn't like Grotitjs. At every 
step, Hammond found himself opposed by this 
grim-lipped statesman whose arbitrary spirit, 
violent temper and bitter tongue were equalled 
only by his efficiency,* courage and honesty. So 
these two masterful men clashed, but a surgeon- 
general was easy game for the autocrat of Amer- 
ican politics who drove even Lincoln to despair, 
who came within one vote — ah, how much history 
has hinged on one vote — of having Johnson im- 
peached, and who exchanged blows with mighty 
Sherman. There seems to have been some- 
thing mysterious in Hammond's connexion with 



Friends in New York 267 

a million horse-blankets — or was it with drug- 
supplies on which his brother-in-law grew rich? 
The Secretary of War put his machinery in mo- 
tion, and the court martial pronounced Ham- 
mond guilty, deprived him of rank, and dismissed 
him in disgrace. Whether Hammond was 
blameless in the matter of these horse-blankets, 
or whether he really tried to indulge a bit in the 
well-known American game of 'graft/ we can- 
not venture to say, but it may be conceded that 
his summary removal was due chiefly to Stan- 
ton's enmity. 

A weaker man would have succumbed to these 
'bludgeonings of chance,' but Hammond came 
to face life in New York. His colleagues be- 
lieved in him, and he was appointed lecturer in 
n eurol ogy at the College of Physicians and Sur- 
geons; within a short time he became the first 
professor of neurology at the Bellevue Hospital 
Medical College, but resigned, after some years, 
to accept a similar chair at the New York Uni- 
versity Medical College. He was one of the 
principal founders, in 1882, of the New York 
Post-Graduate Medical School and Hospital, 
where he continued to teach his specialty with 
considerable success, and where his son, Graeme 



268 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

Monroe Hammond, is professor of mental dis- 
eases until this very day. 

Hammond was not the sort of man to go thru 
life tamely with a stigma hanging over his head. 
He besieged the senators until Congress surren- 
dered to his demand for a review of the court- 
martial proceedings which had deposed him; he 
presented a volume of evidence in his defense, 
and the result of this later inquiry was favorable 
to Hammond; like the surgeon-generals of the 
revolutionary period, he was vindicated, being 
restored to his rank of brigadier-general on the 
retired list — after fourteen years of disgrace. If 
this was an act of Justice, then Justice needs the 
services of an orthopedist, for she is painfully 
lame. 

Hammond was a voluminous author, and as 
far back as 1863, his Physiological Memoirs 
gained him a reputation. Among his numerous 
volumes are a Treatise on Hygiene, Lectures on 
Venereal Diseases, Sexual Impotence in the 
Male, Treatise on Diseases of the Nervous Sys- 
tem, and exposures of spiritualism and similar 
maladies. In 1883, both Hammond and 
Spitzka published a work on Insanity, Spitz- 
ka's being the superior ; these were the first sys- 
tematic treatises on insanity published in Amer- 



Friends in New York 269 

ica, and Dr Clevenger received an autographed 
copy of each. In after years Clevenger do- 
nated Hammond's copy to the Atlantic City 
Medical Library, and presented Spitzka's copy, 
with copious marginal notes, to the present 
writer. Had Hammond produced fewer vol- 
umes, probably more of them would have sur- 
vived. An author who does not practise birth- 
control with his literary progeny, dooms most of 
them to early extinction. 

Of course, the versatile Hammond had his 
hand in medical journalism. He was the orig- 
inator and editor of the 'Maryland and Virginia 
Medical Journal,' and of the quarterly 'Journal 
of Psychological Medicine and Medical Juris- 
prudence,' and was one of the founders and ed- 
itors of the 'New York Medical Journal.' Thus, 
for an important post-graduate school and an 
important professional journal, New York is 
largely indebted to the efforts of William 
Alexander Hammond. 

Unhappily, Hammond's boundless energies 
could not be confined by physiological, psycho- 
logical, and neurological themes. Now and then 
he would desert these erstwhile favorites in order 
to woo literature — and instead of keeping these 
indiscretions hidden, he published them. It is 



270 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

no exaggeration to say that every time Dr Ham- 
mond became father of a novel, he was guilty of 
a literary felony. His novels are horrible stuff, 
whose bad taste lingers on for months, and never 
entirely disappears. Much bad fiction has come 
our way, but the three worst novels we ever read 
were produced by physicians: The Perverts, by 
Dr William Lee Howard; the Exploits of a 
Physician-Detective, by Dr George Frank 
Butler; and Lai, by Dr William Alexander 
Hammond. 

Hammond had more assurance than modesty 
in his make-up, and he confidently believed that 
in time he could solve all medical problems — but 
he didn't. He was, however, a sagacious inves- 
tigator, and had he not been endowed with ad- 
ministrative ability — always a dangerous gift for 
a scientist — and had he stuck more faithfully to 
his laboratory, his fame would be more secure. 
Among Hammond's early work was an inves- 
tigation of the arrow and ordeal poisons, in col- 
laboration with Silas Weir Mitchell. Thru- 
out his career, in carrying on his researches, 
Hammond experimented upon himself. When 
the oto- ophthalmologist, Daniel Bennett St 
John Roosa — whose hybrid name is due to his 
descent from Dutch, French and English set- 



ntn^ 




^^>^^^— — <- 



Friends in New York 271 

tiers — informed Hammond that there were 
doubts as to the effects of quinine upon the fun- 
dus oculi, membrana tympani and auditory 
nerve, Hammond insisted upon coming to Pro- 
fessor Roosa's office and being dosed with all the 
quinine that his system could tolerate. Oddly 
enough, in the eighteenth century, there was a 
William Alexander who may be regarded as 
one of the founders of pharmacology, for he ex- 
perimented upon himself with drugs until they 
very nearly killed him. 

After his vindication, Hammond removed to 
Washington, where he conducted a sanitarium. 
He was one of the most conspicuous of contem- 
porary neurologists, being widely consulted and 
extensively quoted. He was the first to describe 
mysophobia, and athetosis is known as Ham- 
mond's disease. All in all, he was a type of the 
successful American. His children were also 
successful, his son becoming, as we previously 
mentioned, professor in the post-graduate school, 
and his daughter becoming the Marquise Clara 
Lanza. 

Leidy's infatuation with worms, Cope's early 
interest in salamanders, and Harrison Allen's 
fondness for bats, were matched by Burt Green 
Wilder's partiality for spiders. At the age of 



272 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

fourteen, his study of spiders brought him an 
encouraging nod from the elder Agassiz. Dur- 
ing the Civil War, he was surgeon to the Fifty- 
fifth Massachusetts Infantry — the colored regi- 
ment — but his devotion to spiders did not cease, 
and while stationed on Folly Island, in South 
Carolina, he discovered a large and handsome 
spider' — named Nephila Wilderi by McCook — 
from which, while alive, he reeled 150 yards of 
yellowish silk, and which gave him a taste of 
fame. 

But already, other creatures had begun to at- 
tract his attention: at the age of eighteen, work- 
ing with Jeffries Wyman, he began to com- 
pare the skull of men and apes; at twenty, he 
published his Contributions to the Comparative 
Myology of the Chimpanzee; and later, under 
Agassiz, he studied the anatomy of sharks and 
rays. 

In the autumn of 1867, when Cornell Univer- 
sity opened its doors, the enlightened Andrew 
D. White appealed to Asa Gray and Louis 
Agassiz for a teacher of natural sciences. They 
recommended Wilder, who accordingly was ap- 
pointed professor of physiology, vertebrate zo- 
ology and neurology. His laboratory was in a 
basement — where tools were later kept — and he 






Friends in New York 273 

was his own preparator, assistant, and stenog- 
rapher, but he was only twenty-six, and his sci- 
entific ardor was intense. 

Twenty-five years later, Professor Wilder 
was the recipient of the Wilder Quarter -Century 
Book, which was probably the first of American 
Festschrifts, All its articles were written by 
former pupils who had risen to eminence, for 
Wilder had trained such men as Dayid Starr 
Jordan, Leland Ossian Howard, Theobald 
Smith, Hermann Michael Biggs, and Simon 
Henry Gage. 

The first time we saw Professor Wilder, it 
was under less triumphant circumstances. He 
was scheduled, at the New York Academy of 
Medicine, to lecture to the ill-named American 
Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis on 
certain phases of the venereal peril. He arrived 
with his statistics, but found to his consternation 
that there were women in the audience. Wilder 
had seen women before — he was the father of 
Ruth and Mary and Bertha — and the women 
whom he now saw before him, were, with a few 
exceptions, either physicians or nurses, but they 
looked like other women, and to speak of chancre 
and gonorrhea in their presence, was more than 
Wilder could do. He made a few attempts, 



FROM 

hurt O. Wilder , 31. !>., 

PROFESSOR OF 

Physiology, Comparative Anatomy, and Zoology, 

CORNBLL UNTVERMTV. 



Ithaca, .V. V., 



N 



<" " — . 

5> = 



tr- ^ / 1 



M^> 







bt 0°- 



fcC^r— 



(P.O. ^ *s4&<r*"p 



POSTAL CARD FROM BURT G. WILDER 

showing his propaganda for the metric system 




J&r 



Ca= 



274 



Friends in New York 275 

held up his awful statistics in dismay, and sat 
down. There is no simplicity to equal the un- 
worldly innocence of an old scientist. While the 
professor had buried himself in his laboratory 
at Ithaca, busy with cat's brains, sociology had 
been advancing, and venereal disease and prosti- 
tution had become fashionable topics of conversa- 
tion, indulged in by ladies' clubs and ministers 
seeking popularity. 

It should not be supposed, however, that 
Wilder was usually hesitant in expressing his 
opinions; being a scientist and not a politician, 
he frequently found it necessary to raise his voice 
on the unpopular side. During our first year of 
editorial life, we raised a transient tempest by 
writing The Negro in American Medicine, in 
which we claimed that the medical profession of 
America, instead of enriching anthropology by 
impartial and objective studies of the negro, was 
pandering to the brutal prejudices of the mob, 
and attempting to rival the infamies of a 
Thomas Dixon. After turning the searchlight 
on the physician's hypocrisy in this matter, we 
concluded by declaring that there is a shameful 
chapter in American medicine, and it is headed: 
The Negro. The most glorious exception to 
this rule is Burt Green Wilder. He asserts 



276 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

that his army and university experiences have 
often tempted him to say, 'Yes, a white man is 
as worthy as a colored man — provided he be- 
haves himself as well.' When that sensation- 
springing novelist, Mr Owen Wister, seeking 
to wrap himself in the cloak of popularity, made 
startling and dishonest comparisons between the 
skulls of the negro and the ape, Professor 
Wilder exposed his errors with such facts and 
persistence that the would-be breeder of race- 
prejudice — altho he claimed never to have heard 
of Wilder before — was compelled, much against 
his inclinations, to modify his statements. 
Welder's monograph on The Brain of the Amer- 
ican Negro, coming from one of the foremost 
neuro-anatomists of modern times, sounds a 
death-knell to the white man's conceit, and is a 
trumpet-call to a capable but downtrodden race. 
For many years Wilder not only advocated 
the simplification of neuro-anatomical nomen- 
clature, but supplied a new nomenclature, so it 
could be compared with the old. Wilder was 
always a scholar, and, on most occasions, a gen- 
tleman, but when he heard the resolution, 'that 
members of this Association should defer to gen- 
eral usage,' he gave way to a passionate denun- 
ciation of that universal commander: 



Friends in New York 277 

Of all so-called leaders, the most incapable, blun- 
dering and dangerous is General Usage. He stands 
for thoughtless imitation, the residuum of the ape in 
humanity; for senseless and indecorous fashions, the 
caprices of the demi-monde; for superstition and hys- 
teria, the attributes of the mob ; for slang, the language 
of the street hoodlum and of his deliberate imitator, 
the college 'sport ;' and finally in science, for the larger 
part of the current nomenclature of the brain. As 
scholarly anatomists it is at once our prerogative and 
our duty to scrutinize and reflect, and to deal with 
the language of our science in the same spirit and with 
the same discrimination that we maintain in regard to 
the parts of the body and the generalizations concern- 
ing them. 

The sterilization of defectives, the simplified 
spelling, the use of chloroform as a lethal agent 
for condemned animals and criminals, the aboli- 
tion of fraternities and intercollegiate athletic 
contests, the removal of the appendix from all 
young children — these are a few of the reforms 
which Wilder has advocated with little success. 

At the age of seventy, after forty-two years 
of splendid service at Cornell, Professor Wilder 
retired. He is one of the finest representatives 
of American science, but the man in the street 
does not know him, and neither does that impos- 



278 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

ing authority, the Encyclopedia Britannica, 
whose eleventh edition devotes many columns to 
some of our loud-mouthed politicans, — who 
added nothing to the sum of human knowledge, 
— but contains not even a casual reference to 
the foremost makers of American medicine — 
the Jacksons, the Warrens, the Bigelows, 
Horner, Drake, Nott, Gross, and Marion 
Sims. But tho the Encyclopedia Britannica 
knows him not, Wilder has been quoted by an- 
other British authority — Charles Darwin. It 
was Thackeray who said that to have your name 
mentioned by Gibbon was like having it written 
on the dome of St Peter's, for pilgrims from all 
the world admire and behold it. Similarly, the 
student of science may say that to have your 
name inscribed in the Descent of Man, is to write 
it down for farthest posterity. 

Clevenger is indebted to Wilder for adding 
Clevenger's fissure to neurological nomencla- 
ture; these two neurologists became personally 
acquainted at the Boston meeting of the Amer- 
ican Association for the Advancement of Sci- 
ence, where Wilder read three papers on the 
structure and nomenclature of the brain, with 
special reference to that of the cat, and Cleven- 
ger read his plan of the cerebro- spinal nervous 



Friends in New York 279 

system. Wilder, in his October, 1880, letter to 
Clevenger, discusses the latter's famous School 
of Biology — which never opened its doors. 
Wilder devised the correspondence-slip, in 
1884, and on August sixteenth of that year, 
wrote to Clevenger: 

I inclose a slip bearing a question, the answer to 
which may be written on it. For some time past I 
have felt that much scientific correspondence might be 
profitably carried on in this 'slip-shod' way; what do 
you think? 

I wish you could attend the coming meeting of the 
A. A. A. S., and present some paper on the brain as 
well as discuss mine. 

The slip which Wilder enclosed bore this 
query: 

Do you still hold your view as to the morphological 
significance of the cerebellum, especially in view of 
Spitzka's recent article in Record? The evidence of 
it does not appear to me either in your paper or in the 
preparations I have made. 



CHAPTER IX 
LETTERS FROM SPITZKA 

SINCE this slip still remains attached to 
Wilder's note, we do not know whether 
Clevenger ever answered the question, but it is 
certain he was interested in Spitzka's view. We 
now approach the longest-lasting and most im- 
portant friendship which Clevenger ever 
formed. Edward Charles Spitzka was born 
in New York, in the latter part of 1852, and thus 
was nearly ten years younger than Clevenger. 
At the age of twenty- one he received his M.D. 
from New York University, and as his father 
was a successful jeweler, the young doctor could 
afford to do post-graduate work at Leipzig and 
Vienna. At Vienna he came under the influence 
of the neurologist Meynert, and the author of 
Diseases of the Fore-Brain never had a better 
pupil. 

But Theodor Meynert was not the only 
force that swayed Spitzka in those days. Since 
the New Yorker was away from home, he had to 

280 



Letters from Spitzka 281 

eat in a boarding-house — and there he met her. 
She was of the homespun variety, capable of 
making a devoted and durable wife. Of course 
her name should have been Gretchen, but it 
happened to be Katherine Watzek; however, 
it was soon changed to Frau Spitzka. So Dr 
Spitzka returned to New York, carrying in his 
pocket Meynert's certificate and a marriage-cer- 
tificate. It was not a happy home-coming. The 
jeweler thought Mrs Spitzka was not flashy 
enough to wear his diamonds in society, and in 
wrath he turned his son out of doors. Hard 
times followed; Dr Spitzka had been brought 
up as a scholar, not as a business-man, and had 
not yet learnt the trick of making money. Once 
he came into possession of an elephant's head, 
and worked thruout the night to get the brain 
out of the skull, but in the cool of the morning 
he found to his despair that he did not have a 
coin for alcohol. He walked the streets in 
tears, and before he obtained the twenty-five 
cents, the elephant's brain had spoiled. Eliza- 
beth Barrett's father never forgave his daugh- 
ters who married, but a reconciliation occurred 
between the elder and younger Spitzka. 

The friendship between Clevenger and 
Spitzka began in 1879, when Clevenger sent 



282 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

Spitzka a cordial appreciation of the latter's 
Architecture and Mechanism of the Brain, which 
was appearing serially in Professor Jewell's 
journal. It was certainly a masterly piece of 
work, and Spitzka was only twenty-seven at the 
time. Jewell himself broke his usual editorial 
reserve to praise his brilliant contributor: 

We would no longer defer calling the special atten- 
tion of our readers to the articles of our talented young 
contributor, Dr E. C. Spitzka, of New York City. We 
have no hesitation in saying that, as a whole, they have 
not been equaled by any series of articles that have 
appeared on the same subjects, in the whole range of 
American medical literature. Whether we consider the 
vast amount of labor they represent, the breadth and 
accuracy of his information respecting the best liter- 
ature of his subject, or the talent exhibited for critical 
interpretation of facts and results, we think our 
thoughtful readers must acknowledge with us, that 
their author is entitled to no ordinary commenda- 
tion. 

Even the abuse — and it was plentiful — which 
was showered upon Spitzka during his career, 
was to his credit. For example, J. J. Elwell's 
fulmination in the Alienist and Neurologist, ex- 
poses the mental calibre of one class of Spitzka's 



Letters from Spitzka 283 

opponents — vacuousness, filled only with rancor- 
ous prejudice: 

Spitzka is a weak echo of a class of modern crazy 
German pagans, who are trying, with what help they 
can get in America, from such scientific alienists as he, 
to break down all the safeguards of our Christian civi- 
lization, by destroying if possible all grounds for hu- 
man responsibility, putting forth the cold vagaries of 
agnosticism and nihilistic utilitarianism — accepting 
nothing beyond the reach of uncertain human experi- 
ment and his own fallible reason — reconciling the ir- 
reconcilable factors of life and human existence. 

Spitzka rose rapidly to the top of his profes- 
sion, becoming at an early age, president of the 
New York Neurological Society, professor of 
medical jurisprudence and of the anatomy and 
physiology of the nervous system at the New 
York Post-Graduate School of Medicine, and — 
unfortunately for his repose — professor of com- 
parative anatomy at the Columbia Veterinary 
College. This connexion with a veterinary in- 
stitution gave his enemies a hint: they spread 
the report that Spitzka was a horse-doctor — and 
obtuseness and viciousness accomplished the rest. 
No amount of explaining that Spitzka was sim- 
ply teaching comparative anatomy — the noble 



284 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

science which occupied the best hours of a 
Hunter, a Huxley, a Haeckel — sufficed to 
wipe out the stain. In courts of law, where he 
was called to testify as an expert, he was apt to 
hear the question, 'But you are a horse-doctor, 
are you not?' And the idea of a horse-doctor 
posing as an alienist was sure to bring a know- 
ing smile to the brutish lips of ignorance. 

Spitzka finally grew tired of denying that he 
was a veterinarian, and on an unforgettable oc- 
casion, being irritated by the old question, 'But 
you are a horse-doctor, are you not?' Spitzka 
turned upon his tormentor, and answered, 'In 
the sense that I treat asses who ask me stupid 
questions, I am.' Thus, Spitzka, who laid no 
claim to the mantle of a humorist, added a classic 
joke to the annals of American psychiatry. 
While Spitzka was being reviled in law-courts 
as a horse-doctor, he was being cited in the 
Smithsonian Reports as an outstanding author- 
ity on cerebral anatomy. But in the quiver of 
reason there is no arrow sharp enough to pierce 
the armor of stupidity. To the end of his days, 
this great scientist was dogged by the title of 
horse-doctor. 

Whenever Clevenger, came to New York, it 
was an interesting day for himself and Spitzka; 





B. G. WILDER 



Letters from Spitzka 285 

not often could either of them encounter a com- 
panion who was willing to sit up all night dis- 
cussing subjects in which there was no money. 
But they were not top-heavy, and did not take 
themselves too seriously. They mixed section- 
cutting with relaxation. They enjoyed Coney 
Island, and all its fakes. They often strolled 
thru Central Park, visiting the Zoo. They fre- 
quented the Aquarium, as Spitzka was a great 
student of fish. They chatted in a summer-gar- 
den, over their beer and cheese. Once they went 
to the Bowery Theatre, cheap and tough. The 
thrilling melodrama dragged on past midnight, 
and the villain was still pursuing her, when the 
manager came upon the stage and announced in 
a sad voice, that the authorities compelled the 
theatre to close at that hour. Someone in the 
audience yelled, * Hurrah for the authorities/ and 
the two neurologists were much amused. 

As Clevenger was the elder, it was naturally 
taken for granted that he would die first, and on 
one occasion, while standing near an elevated 
station on Third Avenue, he remarked to 
Spitzka: 'I don't see why you take brains out 
occipitally. I think the old method, cutting off 
the calvarium, is less apt to injure them.' 



286 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

'I prefer the occipital method,' said Spitzka, 
'I do it nicely that way.' 

'But when you take out my brain,' rejoined 
Clevenger casually, speaking like a true mem- 
ber of the American Anthropometric Society, 'I 
want you to do it by ' 

'No,' insisted Spitzka, 'I'll extract it occip- 
itally,' and then began an argument as to how 
Spitzka was going to remove Clevenger's en- 
cephalon, but suddenly seeing the comic side of 
this discussion, they broke into laughter and ran 
up the steps to catch an approaching train. 

Friendship is based upon a subtle chemistry, 
for human beings are swayed by the law of op- 
posites as surely as is the atom. Clevenger and 
Spitzka were wholly dissimilar. Clevenger 
was an unsettled character, impetuous and un- 
practical, soaring high one day in exultation, and 
landing the next day in the ditch of depression. 
Spitzka was more slow-pulsed, and we picture 
him walking along life's highway, steady, sober, 
his cane striking bottom every time. Clevenger 
was always poking his nose in the center of the 
universe, and appealing to everybody; Spitzka 
stuck to his section-cutting, and addressed him- 
self only to specialists. He made no appeals to 
the public, and only once did he write for the 



Letters from Spitzka 287 

general practitioner, and that was when he pub- 
lished his admirable Manual of Insanity. 

Nevertheless, Spitzka was a voluminous au- 
thor, and altho most of his writings were tech- 
nical, there is a splendid swing to his sentences, 
at times the true Spencerian sweep. Yet it was 
Clevenger who was the Spencerian; Spitzka 
preferred Wundt. 

The relationship between Spitzes and Clev- 
enger was frankly that of teacher and pupil — 
but the younger man was the teacher. With the 
possible exception of Spencer and Darwin, no 
name appeared so frequently in Clevenger's 
work as the name of Spitzka, but in Spitzka's 
writings the name of Clevenger is not men- 
tioned at all, unless we except some letters pub- 
lished in Science, and the preface to the sec- 
ond edition of his Manual of Insanity, where he 
gives Clevenger credit for aid received. 

During his rare visits to Professor Spitzka, 
Clevenger met a little Spitzka, whose tower- 
ing ambition in those days was to tear the covers 
from his father's bulky German periodicals. 
Burt Wilder called him the 'worthy son of an 
eminent father/ and at thirty Edward Anthony 
Spitzka became the professor of anatomy at the 
Jefferson Medical College, and is known to a 



288 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

host of students as the American editor of 
Gray's Anatomy. Yet it was not often that 
Clevenger was able to ascend the steps of 137 
East 50th Street — a thousand miles stretch be- 
tween Chicago and New York. But the two 
alienists corresponded enthusiastically, especially 
from 1880 to 1884, and it is our privilege to give 
some of Spitzka's letters to the world — that is, 
to that infinitesimal fraction of the world which 
will read these lines. 

Edward Charles Spitzka's first letter to 
Clevenger, dated the eighth of December, 1879, 
refers to Spitzka's Architecture and Mechanism 
of the Brain, but deals largely with that night- 
mare of authors — typographical errors: 

Your very welcome favor is received. It is very 
gratifying to know that my article has been of some 
service to anyone and coming from such a source, the 
commendation which you are so kind to bestow is of 
special value. 

The word 'black' should be 'blank' and is so corrected 
in the reprints of which I will send you one with the 
next lot that goes out. The line (a) is omitted by the 
printer; it was present as a straight perpendicular in 
my original design. 

Your kind offer to furnish me with certain brains is 
noted; should I get thru my present material I will 



Letters from Spitzka 289 

perhaps presume on your kindness to that extent. At 
present I have fine brains going to pieces because I 
have not leisure enough to utilize them properly. And 
one reason why I deferred the continuation of my ar- 
ticle is that I expect to discover some points which 
should be introduced but which I prefer to confirm 
before so doing. 

With the friendliest greetings to yourself as well as 
to Dr Jewell. 

P. S. There are other typographical errors, some 
of which I felt sure I had corrected or that were cor- 
rect in the original proof. 

So this was the opening of a friendship which 
sometimes flagged, and even wore itself out with 
the passing years, but nevertheless left pleasant 
memories. Even Gilbert and Sullivan had 
their misunderstandings, so let us not be sur- 
prised that Clevenger and Spitzka finally 
drifted apart. 

During August, 1880, Clevenger was in New 
York, staying at the Metropolitan Hotel, and 
on the twelfth of the month, Spitzka sent him 
this letter: 

Now that I have a little breathing time, I am going 
over my collection of brains ready for slicing, and 
while so doing laid to one side some specimens that may 



290 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

be of service to you in your work on the Cornu Am- 
monis. If you will come tomorrow afternoon, say any 
time after two and before five (for we want daylight), 
I will show you things that will make your mouth water ! 

It is so rarely that I find anyone to talk to on this 
subject, that now that I have found a congenial spirit 
I find it hard to stop talking, and my diarrhea of 
words must vent itself on paper. I found that Paca 
brain, the specimen is something marvelous, and on 
cutting across an opossum's I find the most clear 
confirmation of the views which we both hold. 

I had intended keeping back the figures of these 
relations till the third chapter of the Architecture, but 
as it will be a year before that comes out, will give you 
the chance to work up the subject from my specimens. 
All that I shall want credit for is the remarkable rela- 
tion in the Paca. I found this two years ago and 
never published it, but it would be well to incorporate 
it in your paper. 

So if you can, do not fail to come tomorrow. I have 
always considered the Cornu Ammonis the great primi- 
tive gyrus and the key to the hemisphere's homologies. 
In my first (preliminary) chapter on Architecture and 
Mechanism there is a figure showing the Cornu Ammonis 
to be limited to the dorsal aspect of the Corpus Cal- 
losum in a bat, of which I can demonstrate to you some 
representative sections. 

Two months later, Spitzka wrote: 



j • . j -16- „ ,j:-j,-' -£Z/^£T 



c*^, »J, olu W j** *£ ^^^ 










fry****. UjUjl.^ 7£C £r7+*<>L ?b+<^u***^- ~&L fXU47~ 



LETTER FROM E. C. SPITZKA 



291 



292 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

Your kind card received. On condition that it does 
not interfere with Bannister, I am very willing that 
you should mention the matter you propose to Dr 
Jewell. You know I am not very ambitious of formal 
honors, but I would take hold of the Department of 
Insanity and make it a feature of the Journal if 
Jewell sent me the journals on Psychiatry which he 
receives. I am very much obliged to you for thinking 
of me. 

I shall have a long article of one hundred pages or 
so in the January number, which will prove the best 
of my imperfect contributions ; it represents the re- 
sults of labors carried on for five years, and among 
other things deals with a matter which may interest 
you, the relation of convolutional asymmetry of the 
atypical kind to insanity. 

Can you inform me what stereotyping costs per page 
in Chicago? If not, and you see Jewell, jog him 
about it, as I asked him the question and have not yet 
been answered, probably because I have overwhelmed 
him with correspondence. 

I hope you will continue your anatomical researches ; 
of course such work is best carried on at leisure and 
slowly, and the 'Big Thing' which I trust will 
prove a success, should have its due share of your at- 
tention. What you like to do, that do; willing work 
always yields the best results. 

How have you been getting on with your fish mu- 
seum? do the specimens look well? what species have 



Letters from Spitzka 293 

you? Can I do anything for you in the way of cas- 
ually harpooning a salt water species? Have you 
caught that 18-foot sturgeon yet? 

By the twenty-ninth of October, Spitzka felt 
sufficiently familiar with Clevenger to 'pitch in' 
into him: 

I have received your paper on the Central Nervous 
System, and perused it with pleasure. It is on the 
whole a very suggestive and well written paper. 

I regretted to note one very ambiguous feature. In 
your projection system you put down the external and 
internal capsule as homologues of the afferent nerves, 
and the crura as the efferent. Now both are but seg- 
ments of one and the same continuous tract. If you 
had considered a part of this entire tract involving 
both segments as afferent and another as efferent you 
would have been anatomically and physiologically cor- 
rect. In fact your first two segments could not be 
defended even theoretically. I felt bad over it, be- 
cause the propositions of the paper generally are ex- 
cellent. 

Your 4th segment is not clear to me. 

Are you certain that you have interpreted Birdsai/l 
correctly? 

You know my habit of 'pitching in.' 'Him whom the 
Lord loveth he chastiseth.' I would not say this if I 
were not perfectly sure that you would receive the 



294 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

criticism in the same spirit in which it was intended by 
me. 

I trust you will not abandon your work on the Fish's 
Brain; there is nothing we regret so much in after 
years as time thrown away on undertakings once be- 
gun and not completed. I can sing a song to that tune 
myself and have learned a lesson. I trust you will 
resume what I consider will lead to important results 
after you finish your new matter. 

In his letter of November eighth, Spitzka 
told Clevenger what he thought of him as a sci- 
entist : 

As to Drs Jewell and Bannister, I agree with all 
you say. I have few as firm and disinterested friends 
in the United States. Dr Jewell is correct in assum- 
ing that he has been of assistance to me. Without his 
Journal I might have been crushed by the Asylum and 
New York Medical Rings, and quite aside from actual 
support, his word of encouragement, dropped at the 
right time, has done me more good than all the adula- 
tion (real and pretended) received since. He has been 
of greater service to me in pointing out my faults, and 
I have not had a juster critic. On one occasion he 
devoted two hours in New York to giving me advice. 

People ask me who Clevenger is, and it may interest 
you to know my objective opinion, both of yourself and 
of your article: 'Dr Clevenger is a very enthusias- 



Letters from Spitzka 295 

tic worker, who if his other engagements will permit 
him to stick to the researches he has started on, will 
undoubtedly accomplish good results. His present ar- 
ticle is too speculative in character to be criticized 
objectively; it exhibits suggestiveness and ability in 
its theories however, and these qualities if combined 
with objective study will place him in the front rank 
of original workers. 

I still think that your frontal and occipital lobe 
business stands on the empty air, even with the present 
corrections, while the facial thalamus theory which 
can be better defended is not supported by any ob^ 
servations. 

I am getting to be an old stager, and in our future 
correspondence about such points as you may write 
about, will gladly put my hints in an available form, 
so that at least I shall have no occasion for after criti- 
cism. 

As to tools, I would say that I can take out any bony 
fish's brain with nothing more to aid me than a com- 
mon pocket-knife. Your fish must have been too stale ; 
the brain softens very rapidly after death. Don't get 
frozen fish. 

Your German is very fair. The concluding clause in 
English reminds me of Mark Twain's remarks about 
his fine war map, where he changed the course of the 
river Rhine because his 'graver' had slipped in wood 
cutting; he would rather have changed the course of 
the Atlantic Ocean rather than lose so much work. 



296 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

In his confidential letter of November thir- 
teenth, Spitzka discusses the most important of 
all subjects — money. The party in 'financial 
straights' was Professor Jewell, who borrowed 
a thousand dollars from Clevenger, and could 
not repay it for years. If Jewell had hunted 
for advertisements for his Journal as assiduously 
as he sought for valuable reading-matter, his 
affairs would have been less precarious. But 
such is the world in which we live : 

Such matters as you mention are apt to make one 
feel in reading them as if a sudden discord had tal^en 
place in the midst of a symphony. I know from due 
experience what you mean when you say you ought not 
to be troubled by business matters. It renders one un- 
able to concentrate one's self on a scientific subject, 
to devote that attention to it, which is a conditio sine 
qua non of good deliberate thinking and writing. It 
is not the mere loss of cash or its prospective gain 
that ever depress or elevate the spirits of the right kind 
of men, but the privations they may cause or the good 
we can do with it. 

The man who has his whole depending on what he 
can make from day to day, or whose chances being as 
yours do on the solvency of some one else, is torn and 
agitated to such an extent as to wish that he were 
rather at some fixed meaner (?) occupation with a 



Letters from Spitzka 297 

regular tho small income, and let scientific aspirations 
go to the — wall ! I have lost my best years in fretting 
on similar grounds, and my irritability, which probably 
will remain a constitutional feature, was worst at that 
time, and there it originated. I suppose I was never 
cut out to become insane, but from my individual ex- 
periences regarding worry from financial causes, I have 
obtained a pretty fair idea of how a perfectly sound 
brain may become unsettled from such causes. 

I am surprised that the party you mention should be 
in financial straights to the extent of borrowing from 
a younger man. But I suppose it is a temporary mat- 
ter, and think it may be connected with the expenses 
of the Journal. 

May you not yourself be at fault unconsciously in 
this matter? I have an impression that either of one 
of the gentlemen wrote me that you had made consid- 
erable at some business or other, and possibly your 
debtor does not hesitate to borrow since he has an idea 
that you can afford to lend, more readily than is the 
case, and would refrain from borrowing further, if he 
knew the real state of affairs ! 

I am indebted to you for your efforts, you know how 
I feel regarding the matter, and I can afford to have it 
put off. My literary engagements are horrible. I 
publish a prize essay in the April number, the Archi- 
tecture and Mechanism in January, a dictionary of 
insanity terms (polyglot) thru the year, and probably 
will get out a book or two. 



298 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

I have just now two insane murderers to defend. I 
should be willing to withdraw from the cases if I could 
get an autopsy. Matters financial have been picking 
up with me, but lately there has been a relapse; ups 
and downs. 

In his letter of January, 1881, Spitzka gives 
Clevenger the sort of advice that is needed by 
a Don Quixote: 

Your letter pleased me very much. I am glad to 
see you adhering to a certain line of work. I have 
seen some of my ablest friends the victims of their ver- 
satility, and I rejoice when one of them sticks to one 
thing. 

I would advise you to look on your scientific work as 
a relaxation, and not to lose sight of the practical 
money-making aspect of life. How are you to get 
books, instruments, specimens, alcohol and glass, un- 
less you make the money for them? Your scientific 
work will not bring you in enough directly to keep you 
in beer, let alone to starve decently. But it will bring 
you actual financial gain indirectly. A physician with 
actual scientific backbone is found out any how, if he 
has a little savoir faire. That's your policy. Science 
for amusement, and to give you the consolation that 
you will advance human knowledge. Medicine to earn 
the dollars to enable you to prosecute Science. You 
6ee, a circulus vitiosiis. 



Letters from Spitzka 299 

I sent you a card (of congratulations) in regard to 
your article in Science. 

Wilder and I are in frequent correspondence. He 
proposes to submit his paper on cerebral nomencla- 
ture to me before putting it in print. He adopts my 
optic and postoptic lobe matter. My best work is yet 
coming, and I will keep you supplied with the respec- 
tive papers. 

In his letter of February eighth, Spitzka con- 
tinues his common-sense exhortations. Inci- 
dentally, he refers to Cleyenger's gynecological 
friend, Dr Dudley, and to his neurological 
friends, Drs Wilder, Jewell and Bannister: 

Your welcome favor was received several days since. 
I cannot venture to give advice, but your plan of get- 
ting to the starvation point seems to me highly un- 
practical and unwise. What special profit it can pos- 
sibly be to you to follow up abstract science for a year 
and put yourself in a position of inability to pursue it 
any further, I fail to perceive or comprehend. What 
earthly right you have to (using your own language) 
'turn upon the masses and ask them what they can 
give me in return for what I have tried to do for pos- 
terity,' it is equally difficult to recognize. You might 
read some portions of Thackeray relative to the disap- 
pointed aspirants for literary honors, with a good deal 
of enduring profit. 



800 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

You say correctly that I have 'been thru the mill,' 
and I think I have been in exactly that state of mind 
in which I regret to find you agonizing at present — 
and thank my star that I am out of it, and unless you 
get out of it thru an exercise of deliberate judgment 
on your own part, you will be knocked out of it by 
the rough buffets of fortune. 

You are enough of an experienced man of the world 
to know that the human race must be taken as it is 
— not as it should be. Suppose everybody who took 
up science were to say 'the world owes me a recom- 
pense a year from now,' and suppose the claim were 
admitted, it would be the most effectual bar to progress. 
Take your own work for example; so far as published, 
it contains very little of actual established fact, and a 
great deal of promised good work for the future. But 
until that promise is cancelled ( and you cannot do that 
under several years) it is a mere promise, and the world 
owes you absolutely nothing for that. 

Now this is very plain and very hard talk, but I 
have always been plainest and hardest with my friends. 
I never dissimulate or bandy polite phrases devoid of 
meaning, except with those I despise or dislike. What 
I say I think is the unanswerable truth, and I say it 
at the risk of misconstruction, because the danger in 
which you travail at present appears to me to require 
a loud warning. 

As regards practice, you must do exactly as others 
do, or you may just as well cut your throat or take 



Letters from Spitzka 301 

in your shingle. Your first duty is to family, your 
next to science, your next to the world at large, and 
claims upon your time should be exactly in that order : 
first, Family; second, Science; third, World. 

Dr McBbide has not yet tackled the subject, being 
engaged in collecting material — so I shall keep your 
letter till he shall be able to consider its propositions 
in the light of his own results. You want to get Prof. 
Wilder's papers on the pike's brain. I think you will 
be able to throttle a good deal said there and at the 
same time it will show the present state of knowledge 
on the subject. The most essential thing for you is 
Fritsche's work, which you will find mentioned in the 
literary references of my article or rather letter to 
you published in Jewell's Journal. 

There is no one else working up the fish's brain that 
I know of in this country from the same point of view 
as yourself. One of my pupils interested himself in 
the general aspects of the subject, but he has not gone 
into independent research. So far as I know the field 
is comparatively clear. Above all, hurry up a series 
of fine well-stained longitudinal and transverse micro- 
scopic sections of the great hoary Lepidosteus; you 
can get him from the Great Lakes and the Ohio. That 
is the keystone of the subject, and you will find much 
to publish about it in the way of provisional communi- 
cation. 

Dr E. C. Dudley called on me yesterday. 

Give my respects to Drs Jewell and Bannister if 



302 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

you meet them, and don't take anything amiss from 
your friend. 

Spitzka's letter of May eighteenth, contains 
several interesting observations, including his 
epigram that versatility is the curse of genius : 

After some silence I take advantage of a lull to write 
a little more at length on some points. I was reminded 
of you by every issue of Science, and had to reproach 
myself for not inserting your letter. I have done so 
today, sent it in with a few remarks of my own, and 
by the way pitched into Cope a little. 

Some time ago I read over your papers. I do not 
wish to be complimentary, but they show that you have 
all the separate materials for an original investigator, 
which is saying a great deal nowadays. The great de- 
sideratum is that these separate materials be prop- 
erly associated. You have suggestiveness enough for a 
dozen, and not facts enough for one: is that not the 
truth ? If it is not so, pardon the liberty I have taken, 
but it had seemed so to me. 

There is for example your theory of the cerebro- 
spinal system structure; it is full of ideas, any one of 
which would furnish work enough for a single investiga- 
tor. What have you done to sustain your propositions? 
Have you made a single series of embryonic prepara- 
tions, or studied the nerve centers of lower vertebrates, 
higher molluscs and arthropodes? If it is true that 



Letters from Spitzka 303 

Duval of Paris has confirmed your theory by actual 
observations, you have robbed American Science by 
permitting an outsider to stumble on what you had ra- 
tionally anticipated years ago. 

I write this in the spirit I know you will accept it in, 
or else I should leave it unsaid. I say it because I 
consider the game worth the candle, because I feel con- 
fident that a little advice will aid in securing good work 
from a talented source which would otherwise fritter 
away its time in generalities and that versatility which 
is the curse of genius, and because I believe — and if 
wrong will feel only too glad to be wrong — it is needed. 

You may ask what you have done to provoke all this 
— nothing; the whole subject came to me in a manner 
altogether independently of any action remotely trace- 
able to yourself. I got three splendid alligators alive, 
two of them four feet long, and I propose to have them 
worked up by one of my pupils under my direction, 
partly to use them experimentally myself. Looking at 
them and thinking what a mine of new facts lay con- 
cealed in the animals for an investigator possessing 
your qualifications, I was led to denounce the circum- 
stances which kept you in Chicago and myself in New 
York. I am sure that it could be better utilized. 

I have a very talented pupil, who is working up a 
different subject, of less biological import than those 
you ought to be engaged in. Another has done some 
work on the cortex, and his name will probably stick 
to the center which he saw at my office and diligently 



304 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

worked up in the human brain. You could beat it all 
if you would, only I fear that you have been discour- 
aged by some technical difficulties. Contradict me by 
letter. 

Among Spitzka's communications to Cleven- 
ger, we find pages five and six of a letter whose 
other parts have disappeared; the date is there- 
fore lost, but we will insert the fragment here, as 
it deals with the topic discussed in the previous 
letter — Spitzka's pupils. Each of the pupils 
mentioned rose to distinction. Graeme Ham- 
mond we have already met; J. Leonard Corn- 
ing is remembered as the discoverer of spinal an- 
esthesia; and T. A. McBride received the dedi- 
cation of the first edition of Spitzka's Manual 
of Insanity — 'as a mark of the author's personal 
esteem, and an humble tribute to his eminent 
services as a teacher and original investigator in 
the field of clinical medicine.' In the second edi- 
tion, the dedication was omitted by the publish- 
ers, without consulting the author. Spitzka was 
considerably annoyed, and perhaps McBride's 
vanity was wounded — but how little it really 
mattered! Within a short time, McBride be- 
came a sick man, and thought of nothing except 
recovering his health: he undertook an ocean- 



Letters from Spitzka 305 

voyage, and died on the way, and was buried in 
the sea. Spitzka wrote: 

I have three very able pupils at work. Dr Graeme 
Hammond (Dr W. A. Hammond's son), Dr McBride, 
President of Neurological, and Dr J. L. Corning. 
They are pupils in the old classical sense of the term, 
whom it is a relaxation to teach, and I have assigned 
work according to taste for all of them. Hammond 
found a new cortical center knocking (indecipherable). 
McBride will take up the olivary bodies. 

Possibly you may be able to come to New York when 
your specimens are ready, and review the subject here. 
Such isolated observations as you make, which are of 
individual interst, I would publish, if I were, you, in 
Science with a figure or two to illustrate, as a provi- 
sional communication, or in Jewell's Journal. Make 
it a rule to keep an electrotype of every cut for your 
systematic treatise. 

At one time Clevenger was so misguided as 
to imagine he could endure life as a magazine 
hack. George Gissing's New Grub Street 
should be better known; in fact, an enlightened 
State should present a copy to all who are in 
danger of treading that thorofare. Spitzka, in 
his letter of July eighteenth, tried to reason with 
his distracted friend: 



306 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

I sincerely regret and sympathize with you concern- 
ing your discouragement. While I would say nothing 
to convince you against your bent and inclination for 
purely biological studies, yet I will take the liberty of 
offering for your consideration the following points 
into which you may look before leaping. 1st: In a few 
years you will have attained a good income — from what 
I hear of you, you can not fail to reach this desirable 
end. 2nd: Scientific work is poorly paid and not in 
equal and constant demand. 3rd: The work to which 
you propose to devote yourself involves much drudgery, 
petty quarrels, and leaves you but little time for original 
labor, less in fact than an engrossing practice would. 
Of course there is the advantage of seeing periodicals 
and being in constant communion with the general field 
of science. 

I own that, egotistically, my preference would be to 
have you in New York. But I fear you overrate my 
ability to direct your labors. I am so much engrossed 
with practical duties this year, and will be more so 
prospectively, next year, that all I shall be able to do 
for my pupils will be in the line of suggestion. If I 
had men who would initiate themselves in technology 
and work industriously, I could give each of them a no- 
ble field to work up — I have given away two such fields 
already, which promise a rich crop — and would rather 
have one pupil like yourself than a dozen of the aver- 
age kind to follow up these things. 

I shall make an inquiry of the Editor of Science by 



Letters from Spitzka 307, 

letter, as to whether he has a vacancy. I know that 
he paid a medical student during the winter, and be- 
lieve the journal is a paying concern. Possibly you 
could get work on the Nation, and such like, but I 
fear it would be an awful grind ! You could easily se- 
cure the correspondenceship of Dudley's paper, or 
some other western journal. 

If I do not mistake your nature greatly, you have 
written your note under the effect of some mood, some 
disappointment, and you would regret to give up your 
present independence for the routine drag of a bio- 
logico-literary hack, on reflection. 

If this is not the case, believe me I shall do all to 
further your desires in my power, and in this light shall 
let you know of the result of my inquiry with Michels. 

Evidently Clevenger soon recovered from 
this aberration, for we hear no more of his desire 
to don the harness of a hack. It was now Clev- 
enger's turn to render Spitzka a service; some 
of the former's relatives were looking for a med- 
ico-legal expert, and Clevenger recommended 
Spitzka. The New Yorker was anxious for an 
important case in the West, and in his letter of 
August fifteenth, in order to impress Cleven- 
ger's relations, he paraded his qualifications by 
naming the conspicuous cases in which he had 



308 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

appeared — a remarkable series for a youth who 
had not yet reached his twenty-ninth birthday: 

I am very glad that everything with your patient is 
well. Your psychological articles read very well; you 
may recollect an infantile game, where an object is con- 
cealed, and as the seeker gets farther away or nearer 
to it in his search, the cry is cold, very cold, or hot, 
very hot. Your first articles were somewhat of the 
frigid zone, but the recent ones, especially the last, are 
very hot, and there is a very happy thought concealed 
in those of the Science series. 

I have been watching your progress with some solici- 
tude during the past three weeks. You will^dmit that 
there was some occasion for it when you recollect that 
at first you were endeavoring to get a position as a sci- 
entific hack, then to start an opium home, and now to 
go into general practice. 

I am much obliged to you for your kind recommenda- 
tion. I am not conceited, but I should not for a mo- 
ment admit 's name to be weighed in the balance 

with mine. If you wish to make an impression in my 
favor, refer your relative or her lawyers to my report 
in the Radameier case, in the 'St Louis Clinical Record,' 
(just out). Dr Hazard will send them one if they 
wish it and mention your name. I shall have a copy 
sent you. I am ambitious to have some big medico- 
legal case out West, one that will pay for loss of prac- 
tice in New York. I have already a degree of notoriety 



Letters from Spitzka 309 

there, and those things generally reflect back to New 
York. 

If I have occasion to call, you may be sure that I 
shall stop in Chicago, to hunt up the not inconsiderable 
circle of friends I have there. You may perhaps men- 
tion that I have been an expert medical witness in three 
murder cases, Porcello, Munzberg, and Bigot, one ab- 
duction case, Walker, one damage suit, Deputy-Haz- 
zard, two paretic cases, Martin and Gosling, one cere- 
brospinal sclerosis case of undue influence, Higgms, 
one case of neglect, Cowley, one malpractice suit, Sayre, 
and six will cases, Murphy, Leslie, Dickie, Ross, Wal- 
lace and Riegelmann, and seven minor cases. I have 
the largest expert practice in New York at present; 
of the fifteen big cases enumerated, the side which called 
me was successful in ten, the issue is not decided in 
three, and three were decided unfavorably: the Gosling 
case (grossly partisan), the Frank Leslie will case, 
and the Ross will case, both of which have been ap- 
pealed. 

Alas for Clevenger's recommendations, and 
alas for Spitzka's qualifications. The relatives 
— rich in the world's goods, and richer still in 
ignorance — refused to have anything to do with 
Spitzka, because they had heard he was a horse- 
doctor. 

In his letter of September, 1883, Spitzka 



310 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

holds up to Clevenger the adage of the rolling 
stone : 

Speaking of kicking the gluteal region, would it not 
be more advisable for you to abandon the kicking busi- 
ness altogether? You are kicking yourself worse than 
any one else, and it is a great pity. What warrant 
have you to change at one sweep the entire political 
complexion of Cook County? You have naught to do 
with this fight; make friends, keep your place, and ac- 
complish something. You are able to, but not willing 
to do this — it seems to me. In my experience with 
mankind, I have had frequent occasion to observe per- 
sons of excellent parts who were always fretting about 
the little put-backs of life, and letting slip the great 
opportunity of presenting the unobtrusive, patient and 
promising labors of which they were capable. Such 
persons, agitated by alternate fits of industry and dis- 
affection, rarely illustrated any other adage than that 
of the 'rolling stone.' Now suppose that you are turned 
out of the asylum — the worst that can happen — will 
you not have spent your time more profitably in col- 
lecting and arranging material for further study than 
in empty curses ? One brain which I took out last sum- 
mer is now worth to me more than all the polemical 
work I ever engaged in — unless I call my expert rec- 
ord a part of the polemical history of my life. 

Now do not believe that I cannot appreciate your 
feelings and the unpleasant features of your position; 



Letters from Spitzka 311 

but the contrast between your expressions of a few 
months ago and of today is really ludicrous. You do 
not perhaps owe it to your profession, to science, nor 
even to your friends to do honor to your great if not 
last opportunity, but you owe it to yourself and your 
past. 

Over thirty-five years have passed since the 
above letter was written, but in the current issues 
of the Chicago Tribwne (December, 1918) we 
read that conditions are unchanged at Dunning: 
the same sort of brutal attendants, the same sort 
of brutal murders; again we hear of 'a dozen or 
more recent deaths by violence at the Dunning 
Insane Asylum.' Harry Varnell may be dead, 
but Varnellism survives in Cook County. Dr 
Shobal Vail Clevenger's life-work has ended 
in — failure. 

In his letter of November ninth, Spitzka 
quotes another adage for Clevenger's benefit: 

Do you expect to succeed without many failures? 
Could you not glean from my writings how few satis- 
factory findings reward our trouble in insanity? 

Your suggestion to drop pathology after so enthu- 
siastically going into it, reminds me of many of the 
other extreme acts of your career. You see things 
either too rosehued or too dark. One case of syphilitic 



312 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

dementia, or paretic dementia far advanced, thoroly 
analysed, particularly in the basilar tract, would make 
your reputation. I sincerely trust that you will per- 
severe. Lack of success is due to lack of skill, experi- 
ence or knowledge, and the fault is usually with the 
worker, and not with his material. To give up is hence 
to argue one's incompetency. Rome was not built in 
a day, and it is absurd for you to expect within two 
months to accomplish results which our best minds of 
ripened experience, and with the best laboratories at 
their disposal, are still striving after. 

Spitzka's letter of March, 1884, discussing 
Clevenger's attempt to secure the superinten- 
dentship of the Pennsylvania Hospital for the 
Insane, re-introduces us to some of our old ac- 
quaintances : 

I need not assure you that I will do anything in my 
power to aid you in accomplishing your purpose. It 
is indeed not only on your own account that I wish 
you to succeed, but also on mine, as I would rather have 
you near at hand than far distant. 

Unfortunately I had a little dispute — in which I 
happened to be, as I admitted publicly, in the wrong 
— with members of the Kirkbride family, so that it 
would do you no good if you were to parade my recom- 
mendation of you before that particular branch of the 
interests controlling the appointment you are seeking. 



Letters from Spitzka 313 

I think you will encounter many difficulties: the 
position is a high one, and there will be many competi- 
tors, while as I learned in the course of an unsuccessful 
application, Pennsylvanians do not care to have an 
appointment go to any other state. 

Your proper course will be to learn exactly what 
persons to approach, thru Cope, and to send me the 
list. I shall then write special letters of recommenda- 
tion to the more prominent: such as Weir Mitchell 
and Pepper, who I natter myself are quite willing 
to treat any recommendations I may give, thoughtfully. 

Cope and the University are certainly strong back- 
ing, and if you secure the entire University influence, 
you can scarcely fail to accomplish your object. I 
agree with you, that you are not in the very best berth 
at present, tho you may recollect how anxious and ar- 
dent you were to secure it. 

Should you succeed in your application, which I 
heartily wish, do not forget your old friends at Chi- 
cago, for nothing is more appreciated than thought- 
fulness of old obligations and loyalty, and nothing dis- 
liked more than the dropping of persons after they 
have been utilized. I take the liberty of saying this, 
not because I think you could ever neglect the former, 
or do the latter wilfully, but because your mercurial 
spirit (your most malignant foe) might induce you to 
look only at the thing immediately in hand, to the neg- 
lect of retrospective regards. 

P. S. The man you mentioned in your note is con- 



314 The Bon Quixote of Psychiatry 

sidered a fraud in Philadelphia, even by a man he dedi- 
cated a work to. 



In his letter of July fifth, Spitzka praises and 
admonishes his friend: 

On reading over your paper again, in the more ac- 
cessible shape of printed galleys, I must again take 
reason to express my appreciation of its deep thought- 
fulness. It is exactly what our journal wanted, and 
what all such j ournals should have to vary the dull rou- 
tine of case accounts and literature lists. I certainly 
read it with more pleasure than I am ordinarily in a 
position to express. 

In addition, I reflected thus: What a pity that a 
man who can sit down and do this, is perpetually fly- 
ing about the horizon without a fixed object. Why 
does he not stick to work which he is so well fitted to 
do, and in which he will accomplish, perhaps lasting 
fame, if he adheres to it? 

I put three of your letters side by side: one, in 
which you are willing to barter body and soul to get an 
asylum position, followed by a second in which you are 
exuberant as to your prospects of work and results 
after getting it; the third is one in which you express 
yourself as impatient to leave it. I could not help 
thinking of Richard in Dickens' Bleak House. 

I trust you looked upon my refusal to put you in the 
ridiculous position you were bent on assuming before 



Letters from Spitzka 315 

the American Neurological Association with forgive- 
ness. Read over what you wrote, and imagine how it 
would have been received, then burn it, and resolve to 
do no more of this fruitless reform business. You will 
regret one of these days every moment of your life 
which was wasted in controversy. Controversy, if in- 
dulged in too much, leads to an unhappy frame of mind, 
which does not always remain within the domain of 
mere unhappiness, but may and often does become 
pathological. 

Let us soon have something in the line of your last 
communication, or anything else written in the same 
vein. 

After 1884, we find no letters until 1890, when 
Spitzka, as president of the American Neuro- 
logical Association, urged Clevenger to attend 
the Philadelphia meeting and read a paper. But 
as there is no reference to a hiatus in the cor- 
respondence, we must suppose that it had con- 
tinued, and that the letters were either destroyed, 
or were lost during Clevenger's frequent mov- 
ings. The last letter in our possession is dated 
December twelfth, 1897. 

As we write, there lies upon our desk the skull 
of a monkey which Spitzka gave to Clevenger 
in the first year of their friendship. That friend- 
ship is now ended forever, but the brain-case of 



316 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

that Cebus monkey still serves us as a paper- 
weight. Spitzka never extracted Clevenger's 
brain, for he has preceded his elder friend to the 
grave. One after the other, Clevenger's col- 
leagues became dwellers of the silent city. 
Spitzka's son, the Edward Anthony of whom 
we have already spoken, fell heir to the American 
Anthropometric Society: he examined and de- 
scribed the brains of many of the notables who 
have figured in these pages — E. D. Cope, Har- 
rison Allen, E. C. Seguin, William Pepper 
and Joseph Leidy. In the hands of Spitzka's 
son have lain the makers of American Science. 



CHAPTER X 
THE CLOSING YEARS 

AS the years swept on, taking strength and 
friends from Clevenger, he retired from 
the turmoil of Chicago to the placidity of Park 
Ridge — a town about fifteen miles from the 
whirlpool where he had lived so long. But 
cruelty invades the village as readily as the clam- 
orous city. The Clevengers had only to look 
out of their window to see that final proof of 
man's brutality — an ill-treated orphan. She had 
already reached maturity, but as the harsh atti- 
tude of her foster-parents continued, the Clev- 
engers invited her to share their cottage. In 
the autumn of 1910, gastric carcinoma wrote the 
death-certificate of Mrs Clevenger — after for- 
ty-six years of wedded life. A problem now con- 
fronted the old doctor and his young ward, but 
they solved it by marrying each other — thus an- 
ticipating the venerable John Allan Wyeth 
and the charming Miss Chalifoux. 

317 



318 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

The marriage-institution is man's most dan- 
gerous invention. It wrecks more lives than al- 
cohol and war. Many men, like Edmund Wid- 
dowson in Gissing's The Odd Women, wait 
thru half a life-time for marriage — and then 
marry unhappily. The shrewdest cannot avoid 
its pitfalls. Individuals, artful and astute, who 
can meet their fellows successfully on the battle- 
fields of finance, are often unhorsed in their first 
skirmish with matrimony. Yet Clevengee, the 
most unsophisticated of men, twice entered the 
marriage-market with the utmost felicity. The 
wife of his youth and the wife of his age have 
been to him an unalloyed blessing. The first 
Mrs Clevengee, we never met, but we can tes- 
tify that nothing could be more touching than the 
tender devotion with which the second Mrs Clev- 
engee guards her old hero. If she is to him only 
a child, she is also his wife and mother. Clev- 
engee is a man of many failures, but his married 
career — beginning in his twenty-first year and 
extending up to the present — has been eminently 
successful. 

Clevengee's numerous set-backs could not 
prevent him from planning anew, as soon as he 
was settled in Park Ridge — he was not the sort 
of man who could content himself by raising a 



The Closing Years 319 

garden. He soon started the Park Ridge Vo- 
cation School — and the prospectus was alluring. 
The curriculum of the first year included the es- 
sentials of typography, telegraphy, surveying, 
machinery and agriculture. The projector 
wrote : 

The Illinois Legislature refused to make any provi- 
sion for public vocation schools, so it remains for in- 
dividuals to promote this good work until woman suf- 
frage can direct public funds toward the welfare of the 
people, instead of in playing politics. 

My school regards teaching as of more importance 
than buildings, and gradually I am finding superb ma- 
terial in the boys of Park Ridge. The readiness with 
which young folks 'pick up' knowledge of practical 
things, such as wireless telegraphy and mechanism, 
shows that learning can be made pleasant. Higher 
mathematics, even, may be taught indirectly when ap- 
plied usefully, as in triangulating across streams in 
surveying. Some rudiments of chemistry may be taught 
young children by attractive demonstrations. 

The listlessness of task-tired boys in higher school- 
grades changes to enthusiasm in the Vocation School. 
While the average school is attended reluctantly, the 
trade-learning rooms hold eager, alert, interested work- 
ers, who come early to stay long after usual closing 
time. Only while fresh and interested are my little 
fellows allowed to work. Everything is voluntary, and 



320 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

my experience is that they never require urging. By 
self-elimination, those unsuited drop out, but some of 
them come back after the play-spasm is over. The 
older students take pride in teaching the younger, and 
soon realize they are headed in the right direction for 
usefulness to themselves, their families and the com- 
munity. 

Pupils considered dull or incapable have brightened 
into attentive, retentive students under the Vocation 
System. Snobbery, so rampant in the higher grades 
of our common schools, is wholly suppressed, and the 
'dignity of labor' becomes more than a mere phrase. 

My hope is to gradually gather a force of instructed 
boys who will carry on the good work when I shall have 
passed away. Some machinery-patents I desire to put 
in charge of these graduates, to manufacture for the 
benefit of the school 'not built with hands,' but with 
brains. 

Instruction first, materials afterward. And it is 
history that good results in teaching are often secured 
with crude instruments. 

Clevenger did not exaggerate the crudeness 
of his instruments. He located an old press, and 
with poor type, bad ink, and a raw lad or two, 
he proceeded to print some circulars, called Dr 
Clevenger 's Comments, which were indeed ter- 
rible to behold. All who received them must 
have felt like mildly rebuking their instigator, 



The Closing Years 321 

as did Roswell Park, whose last letter, written 
shortly before his lamented death — another 
friend gone! — was as follows: 

It is a long time since I have seen you, and longer 
than that has elapsed since hearing from you. I have 
often read, and taken pleasure in referring medical jur- 
ists, and others, to your books, especially that on 'liti- 
gation spine.' 

But I don't know what to make of this badly printed, 
badly worded, to me, rather unintelligible circular. Is 
it an invitation to subscribe, or what to do, and with 
what object? I don't want to waste your time, but if 
it be worth while, give me some clearer notion of what 
is 'up' or wanted. 

We need say nothing further about the Park 
Ridge Vocation School except that it caused its 
founder a few heart-aches, and then went the 
way of his School of Biology. 

Clevenger was not happy at Park Ridge. He 
had reached an age when he loved to be autobio- 
graphical. Nothing would have pleased him bet- 
ter than to lean back in the rocking-chair on his 
porch, and talk to some sympathetic visitor of 
the days when he browsed in Jewell's library, 
and investigated cerebral pathology, and ap- 
peared for the defense in the case of the State 
of Wisconsin versus Emma Herman and was 



322 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

banqueted by the Sheboygan County Medical 
Society, and helped organize the Chicago Acad- 
emy of Medicine, and lectured under Leidy's 
chairmanship at the Philadelphia Academy of 
Natural Sciences, and dined and argued with 
Cope, and worked and loafed with Spitzka. 

But no eager disciples came on a pilgrimage 
to the Sage of Park Ridge. Nor did the natives 
evince any desire to listen to Clevenger's recol- 
lections. They were interested in money, not in 
reminiscences. They served no other god but 
wealth, and since Dr Clevenger lived in a 
wooden cottage, while the homeopathic physician 
possessed a stone house, they naturally inferred 
that the latter was the better doctor. 

The key-note of Park Ridge is artificiality. 
Every tree is clipped, every hedge is trimmed — 
and so are the inhabitants. No birds seem to 
nest there, and at night we found it difficult to 
sleep because we missed the pleasant chirp of 
the cricket and the song of the tree-frogs. Yet 
Clevenger enjoyed a certain celebrity among 
Park Ridgians, but this was due neither to the re- 
searches he had conducted nor the books he had 
written, but on account of his relationship to 
music. Altho he himself knew little of quad- 
ruple counterpoint, he was known thruout Park 



The Closing Years 323 

Ridge as the father of Martha Clevenger 
Kimmit, the musical leader of the town. To 
bask in the light of a daughter's accomplish- 
ments is one of life's supreme joys, but Park 
Ridge could not hold Clevenger's gifted child; 
she went West to spread melody thruout Wis- 
consin — the State in which her father, years be- 
fore, as a medico-legal expert, effected justice 
for a less fortunate woman. 

So Clevenger waited in Park Ridge, watch- 
ing himself sink into obscurity. In his prime, 
he had his column in such publications as Apple- 
tons Cyclopedia of American Biography, 
White's Cyclopedia of National Biography, and 
Stone's Biography of Eminent American Physi- 
cians and Surgeons, but now he found himself 
excluded from even the all-embracing Who's 
Who. Only at rare intervals he received a cheer- 
ing word, reminding him of the time when he 
amounted to something: a cordial letter from 
the anatomist Albert Chauncey Eyclesh- 
ymer, the dean of the medical school of the 
University of Illinois, asking him to come to 
lunch for a chat about the old times, or a note 
from Smith Ely Jelliffe, the present proprie- 
tor of the Journal of Nervous and Mental Dis- 
ease, generously referring to him as 'one of the 



324 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

founders of the journal.' But as a rule his box 
in the post-office was empty, and his visitor's 
chair unoccupied. 

At times Clevenger looked thru the letters 
he had received from famous colleagues, and was 
on the point of burning them. None of his chil- 
dren had followed scientific pursuits, and when 
he himself stepped down from life's stage, who 
would treasure these letters from Harrison 
Aelen and Cope and Spitzka| Certainly no 
one in Park Ridge. Better burn them in sor- 
row and reverence than have them thrown away 
by an indifferent hand. He took them to the 
fire — then turned back and carefully put them 
away again. 

He had been a sociable man, a mixer with his 
fellows. But he could no longer attend meet- 
ings, and as his earning capacity was at an end, 
he could not even subscribe for the medical and 
scientific periodicals which he desired. His 
meagre pension, supplemented by his wife's re- 
sourcefulness, sufficed to save him from bodily 
hunger, but he suffered acutely from intellectual 
starvation. He must find some one to talk to 
— and finally decided to return to Chicago. 

So he came back to the teeming city, hoping 
for companionship and activity. He sent out 




^w. ^ w^ Jtr^C*** 



ff 



The Closing Tears 325 

cards, announcing his readiness to receive pa- 
tients in his specialty, but other neurologists now 
occupied the field, and no one came to Dr Clev- 
enger; besides, he had no office, perhaps not 
even a percussion-hammer. In Chicago, Clev- 
enger learnt the old story that a man may be as 
lonely in a metropolis as in a village. Every 
day people came to 4321 St Lawrence Avenue 
— but they knocked at other doors than Cleven- 
ger's. 

One summer, Clevenger thought of going to 
Quincy. The state's Old Soldiers' Home is 
there, and he might meet some of his old com- 
rades, and above all, B. F. Underwood was liv- 
ing in Quincy, editing a newspaper. 

When all the world is old, lad, 

And all the trees are brown; 
And all the sport is stale, lad, 

And all the wheels run down ; 
Creep home and take your place there, 

The spent and maimed among; 
God grant you find one face there 

You loved when all was young. 

So Clevenger wrote to Friend Underwood: 

In considering the possibility of my wife and I com- 
ing to Quincy to live, an exceedingly pleasant contin- 



326 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

gency was in meeting you again and renewing our sci- 
entific discussions of the times of General Trumbull, 
Prof. Cope, Dr Montgomery, et id. — tho physically, 
I presume that neither of us are the sprightly kids we 
were in those days of the 'Open Court.' 

Since the publication of my Evolution, which I think 
you reviewed, I got out some medical books and one 
entitled Fun in a Doctor's Life, a copy of which I or- 
dered sent to you. 

You seem to have liked Quincy and been appreciated 
there, and if I do come we can have many a chat over 
past times of both of us, and I know that you have 
added to your lecturing and writing career there. 

I have only general information of your town, and its 
soldier home, in the hospital of which I thought of 
seeking an appointment. 

If not too much trespassing on your time, please tell 
me something of the cottages on the home grounds ; 
are they for one family or more each? and any other 
information an old soldier might like to know. Is the 
administration humane? 

My wife thinks that it would be better for me to go 
down there and see for myself. She is quite timid about 
the projected move, but there are crises in life when 
decision is necessary. . . . 

I hope to hear from you and see you soon. 

But Friend Underwood never answered 
Clevenger's letter ; it was returned to its sender 



The Closing Years 327 

unopened, and across the envelope was written 
the word — Deceased. 

Occasionally, Clevenger hunted up some of 
his acquaintances. During the Christmas sea- 
son of 1913, he visited his friend William 
Augustus Evans, who as health commissioner 
of Chicago, as professor of sanitary science in the 
medical school of Northwestern University, and 
as health editor of the Chicago Tribune, has be- 
come one of the best-known of American hygien- 
ists. The preceding February, Dr Evans had 
taken a trip to Denver, and on the way he read 
Pathfinders in Medicine. He asked Clevenger 
if he ever heard of this book, and Clevenger 
said that he had not. Thereupon, Dr Evans 
loaned his copy to Clevenger, who took it home 
with him. Clevenger began to read the volume 
that night, and for the first time stumbled across 
the story of Semmelweis. It affected him 
strangely, for in the fate of this physician he read 
an epitome of his own thwarted career. Unable 
to sleep, he read the tale over and over again, 
alternately swearing and crying. As Semmel- 
weis had been driven from the Vienna hospital, 
so he too had been cast out, by the powers of 
darkness, from the hospitals of Dunning and 
Kankakee. Across the gulfs of time and space, 



328 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

Clevenger touched hands with Semmelweis. 
Clevenger was seventy years of age, but it was 
not until now, amid indignation and tears, that 
he found his hero ideal. From that time on, his 
conversation and correspondence were tinctured 
with Semmelweis. Clevenger wrote to the 
Semmelweis essayist — and thus found his own 
biographer. When his initial letter arrived, how- 
ever, we knew nothing about Clevenger, except 
that we had come across Clevenger s fissure in 
the oddest of places — in the chapter on Anatom- 
ical Proper Names and their Origin, in Croth- 
ers and Bice's Elements of Latin. 

Our friendship with Clevenger began on the 
day that he learnt of the death of his life-long 
friend, Spitzka. In his letter of January fif- 
teenth, 1914, replying to our note of acknowl- 
edgment, Clevenger wrote : 

Your . . . letter came to me today, just as I was 
grieving over the announced death of my old time friend 
and fellow student in cerebral anatomy and psychiatry, 
Dr E. C. Spitzka of New York. He had an immense 
grasp of those subjects, and we wrote for the Journal 
of Nervous and Mental Disease during the '80's as 
well as other scientific and medical journals, many ar- 
ticles costing us much time, thought and work. 

Of late years we have not seen or corresponded with 






The Closing Years 329 

each other, but when I read of his death by apoplexy 
there came the painful cramp at my heart as when 
during the civil war I looked upon a favorite comrade 
shot down. It seems as tho our very enjoyments, such 
as in friendship, were made the means by Nature to 
increase our sufferings. 

Let us quote a passage from another letter, 
containing one of his numerous references to his 
newly- found but much-beloved Semmelweis: 

Here and there if I can find some bright spots in 
this gruesome story of mine, I shall rejoice in the 
telling, but sneak-thief officials, roystering drunken 
all-night revels of the worst of Chicago slum-dwellers 
at the asylum, and the finding out of trusted confiden- 
tial friends as treacherous, predominate. Full of en- 
thusiasm, I would instruct ministers and prominent 
merchants in the atrocities, only to find sermons filled 
with meaningless platitudes, and that the merchants 
were in with the grafters and with great amusement 
disclosed to them my 'fool reform' plans. And I won- 
dered that I was always butting stone walls ! 

Lord, Lord, if I had only known as much as I do 
now, but none of us can be invincible. I did my best 
and accomplished little. Animosities originating at 
that period survive among the unscrupulous and those 
influenced by them. But poor Semmelweis had a simi- 
lar dose, and must have been astonished as I was at 



830 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

the bitter injustice of it all. It's the interfering with 
vested interests that the world does not forgive. 

When we first met Dr Clevenger, in the 
spring of 1914, we saw a well-preserved, pleas- 
ant-featured septuagenarian. He proved a de- 
lightful raconteur, and tho he sometimes re- 
peated his stories, he invariably told them well. 
He walked with a springy step, his eyes were 
bright and twinkling, and his appearance gave 
evidence, that in spite of the buffets of the world, 
some one was taking care of him. In the au- 
tumn of 1916, after an absence of several months, 
we again saw Clevenger; mentally he was still 
alert, but the inroads of age were visible upon 
him. Upon this occasion we found a new mem- 
ber in the Clevenger household: Tweety, the 
sparrow. In its infancy, it had fallen from its 
nest directly beneath the Clevenger windows, 
and Mrs Clevenger raised it with much love and 
many hemp-seeds. Tweety was not kept in a 
cage, and entirely devoid of fear, it amused it- 
self thruout the evening by flying from one to 
the other, looking into Mrs Clevenger's eyes, 
pecking at the Doctor's beard, nestling under- 
neath our jacket. In its affection and guile- 
less innocence, it symbolised the pure-hearted 
people in whose home it was chirping and fly- 



The Closing Years 331 

ing. We like to retain this picture of our dear 
old Don Quixote, resting peacefully in his com- 
fortable chair, surrounded by his good wife and 
tame bird. 

Upon reaching his seventy-fifth birthday, in 
the spring of 1918, the veteran's pension was in- 
creased, and the Clevengers moved from the 
south side to better quarters at 2639. George 
Street, where they live at present. 

During Clevenger's span of years, neurology 
and psychiatry made more progress than in all 
previous periods. These twin sciences grew up 
in the nineteenth century, and took strides only 
in the latter half. They are new territory for 
the scientist, replete with unexplored regions. 
Ernesto Lugaro's Modern Problems in Psychi- 
atry refers to several, but there are myriads of 
others. Clevenger would have solved some of 
these riddles if he had worked over them long 
enough, but he was a truant child of neurology, 
wandering away and getting lost in other fields, 
when she was about to whisper him her choicest 
secrets. Had he been able to follow Spitzka's 
advice, his achievements in psychiatry would have 
been greater — but then he would not have been 
its Don Quixote. 

Since no method has yet been devised by which 



332 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

to measure the relative greatness of men, it is 
unprofitable to discuss whether our country has 
produced neurologists who equal the French Du- 
chenne, Charcot, or Marie; or the German 
Romberg, Friedreich, or Erb; or the English 

GOWERS, HUGHLINGS JACKSON, Or HORSLEY. 

But this much is indisputable: the labors of 
American neurologists have materially advanced 
our knowledge of the science. 

Leaving aside the earlier workers, such as 
Benjamin Rush, Isaac Ray, James Jackson, 
and John Kearsley Mitchell, we may men- 
tion some of the American achievements in this 
department during the past fifty years: in 1869, 
George Miller Beard described nervous ex- 
haustion; in 1872, George Huntington de- 
scribed hereditary chorea; in 1873, Hammond 
described athetosis, and Seguin investigated 
spastic paraplegia; in 1876, Thomas G. Mor- 
ton described metatarsalgia ; in 1878, Weir 
Mitchell described red neuralgia; in 1884, 
Moses Allen Starr showed that small lesions 
in the lemniscus cause loss of muscular sense in 
the limbs of the opposite side; in 1885, Spitzea. 
described the marginal tract of the spinal cord, 
and Sarah J. McNutt showed that the paraly- 
ses of infants were usually due to hemorrhage 



The Closing Years 333 

within the cranium; in 1887, Charles L. Dana 
investigated the localisation of referred pains, 
demonstrating the areas of pain of sympathetic 
origin; in 1890, William F. Milroy described 
persistent hereditary edema of the legs; in 1900, 
Charles Karsner Mills described unilateral 
progressive ascending paralysis; in 1904, Henry 
Hun increased our information concerning 
myasthenia gravis; in 1907, Ramsay Hunt de- 
scribed herpetic inflammation of the geniculate 
ganglia, and Ross Granville Harrison devised 
a method for directly observing the living and 
growing nerve; in 1912, Frederick Tilney shed 
light on the histology of the hypophysis cerebri. 
Burt G. Wilder's discoveries in cerebral anat- 
omy, J. J. Putnam's various investigations, 
A. A. Brill's popularization of Freudism, Wil- 
liam A. White's and Smith Ely Jelliffe's 
editorial labors, Flexner's and Noguchi's ex- 
perimentation in neuro-pathology, and Harvey 
Cushing's neuro- surgical work, are contribu- 
tions of importance. 

What position does Clevenger occupy in this 
list? Not as high a place as some of the others, 
and whoever looks thru the four official volumes 
of the Institutional Care of the Insane in the 
United States and Canada, will find only inci- 



334 The Don Quixote of Psychiatry 

dental mention of his connexion with Dunning 
and Kankakee. But the calm and detached 
tones in which these stately volumes talk of in- 
stitutional management, carefully avoiding any 
reference to political corruption, do not repre- 
sent the truth of the situation. History cannot 
always be written without indignation. And it 
is because Shobal Vail Clevenger has aroused 
our indignation at atrocities, continued until this 
very day against the most helpless of human be- 
ings, that we have passed weightier names by, 
and have written instead this story of Chicago's 
shame, thus contributing to medical history a 
type which we shall ever cherish — the Don 
Quixote of Psychiatry. 



INDEX OF SCIENTISTS 



Agassiz, Alexander, 232 
Agassiz, Louis, 51, 232, 272 
Agnew, Cornelius R., 264 
Alexander, Harriet, 185 
Alexander, William, 269 
Allen, Grant, 145 
Allen, Harrison, 217-224, 229, 

234, 252, 271, 316, 324 
Amadei, Giuseppe, 166 
Andrews, Edmund, 40-1, 46 

Babcock, Robert H., 52 
Bache, Franklin, 189 
Baird, Spencer F., 210, 218, 225 
Bannister, Henry M., 71, 157, 

185, 294, 299, 301 
Barker, Fordyce, 51 
Bartholow, Roberts, 157 
Bastin, Edson S., 164-5 
Baxter, 81 
Bayle, 192 

Beard, George M., 155, 168, 332 
Beck, Theodoric Romeyn, 48, 

49, 193 
Benedikt, 147 
Bergen, A. C, 30 
Bevan, Arthur Dean, 185, 260 
Biggs, Hermann M., 273 
Billings, Frank, 260 
Billings, John Shaw, 51 
Brainard, Daniel, 34-5, 49 
Brewer, George E., 260 
Brill, A. A., 333 



Brower, Daniel R., 88, 150, 157, 

185 
Butler, George F., 270 
Byford, William Heath, 42-3, 

46, 123 

Charcot, J. M., 332 

Chiarugi, 74 

Christopher, W. S., 185 

Church, Benjamin, 265 

Clark, Daniel, 47 

Cope, Edward Drinker, 109, 
138, 151, 203, 214-16, 224- 
240, 242, 271, 302, 313, 316, 
322, 324, 326 

Corning, J. L., 304-5 

Cramer, Frank, 162 

Crile, George W., 260 

Crothers, T. D., 183 

Curtis, Lester, 46, 152 

Cushing, Harvey, 333 

Cuvier, Georges, 242 

ball, 228 

Dana, Charles L., 131, 333 

Danforth, I. N., 52 

Darwin, Charles, 128, 139, 153, 

170, 208, 212, 278, 287 
Davis, Nathan Smith, 46, 47-55, 

59, 150, 157, 168 
Dean, Chapman V., 120 
Dejerine, Jules, 112 
Dennis, F. S., 260 



335 



336 



Index of Scientists 



Dewey, G. M., 176 
Dewey, Richard, 107-9 
Dickinson, Frances, 25 
Dix, Dorothea Lynde, 75 
Donaldson, H. H., 112 
Dorsey, John Syng, 210 
Drake, Daniel, 278 
Duchenne, G. B. A., 332 
Dudley, Emilius C, 148-150, 

185, 252, 299, 307 
Duval, 303 

Earl, Pliny, 75 

Eberle, John, 13 

Eberth, Carl, 52 

Ecker, 146 

Ehrenberg, 163 

Elliott, George T., 51 

Elwell, J. J., 282 

Emmet, Thomas Addis, 42, 150 

Erb, Wilhelm Heinrich, 175, 

332 
Erichsen, John Eric, 173-180 
Esquirol, J. E. D., 75, 82 
Etheridge, J. H., 257-8 
Evans, John, 49 
Evans, William Augustus, 185, 

327 
Eycleshymer, A. C, 323 

Fantus, Bernard, 126 

Fenger, Christian, 149 

Filhol, 237-8 

Fitz, Reginald Heber, 33, 155 

Flagg, J. Foster, 217 

Flexner, S., 333 

Flint, Austin, 51 

Forel, 112 

Franklin, Benjamin, 247 

Friedreich, N., 332 



Gage, Simon H., 273 
Gapen, Clarke, 182 
Garrison, H. D., 164 
Gegenbaur, Carl, 87 
Geikie, Archibald, 216 
Gibney, Virgil P., 157 
Gibbs, Wolcott, 264 
Girard, Alfred C, 109-110, 122 
Goethe, 211 

Gould, George Milbry, 181 
Gowers, William R., 332 
Gradle, Henry, 43, 185 
Gray, Asa, 212, 272 
Gray, Henry, 36, 288 
Gray, Langdon Carter, 157 
Griesinger, Wilhelm, 75 
Gross, Samuel David, 183, 247, 

278 
Gunn, Moses, 255 

Haeckel, Ernst, 168, 207 
Hamilton, Allan McLane, 102 
Hammond, Graeme M., 267, 

304-5 
Hammond, William Alexander, 

46, 131, 152, 263-271, 305, 

332 
Harrison, Ross G., 333 
Hatfield, Marcus P., 46 
Hayden, F. V., 238 
Hayes, P. S., 254 
Hebra, Ferdinand, 30 
Hektoen, Ludwig, 185 
Helmholtz, Hermann, 139 
Henry, Joseph, 25, 210, 218 
Hill, Gardner, 75 
Hippocrates, 54 
Holden, Luther, 30 
Hollister, John H., 39-40, 186 
Horner, William E., 208,210,278 



Index of Scientists 



337 



Horsley, Victor, 332 
Howard, Leland O., 273 
Howard, William Lee, 270 
Howe, Delia E., 63, 77-80, 111 
Hughes, Charles Hamilton, 165 
Hun, Henry, 333 
Hunter, John, 207 
Huntington, George, 332 
Huxley, Thomas Henry, 229, 

237, 242 
Hyatt, Alpheus, 228 
Hyde, James Nevins, 150, 157, 

252 
Hyrtl, Joseph, 226 

Isham, Ralph N., 39 

Jackson, James, 332 

Jackson, Reeves, 128 

Jelliffe, S. E., 323, 333 

Jevons, 163 

Jewell, James Stewart, 44-6, 
57, 87, 132, 146, 148, 152, 
157, 168, 282, 289, 294, 296, 
299, 301, 321 

Johnson, Hosmer Allen, 46 

Jones, Samuel J., 44 

Jordan, David Starr, 273 

Judd, Herbert, 182 

Kahlbaum, Karl, 62 

Kiernan, James George, 61-2, 

76-77, 101, 157, 182, 185 
Kirkbride, T. S., 238, 312 
Koch, Robert, 153-4 
Koller, Charles, 75 
Krohn, W. O., 126 

Lanphear, Emory, 189 
LeConte, Joseph, 162 



Leidy, Joseph, 47, 152, 203-17, 

219, 220, 222, 229, 232, 234, 

252, 316, 322 
Leuckart, Rudolf, 207 
Leuf, A. H. P., 222 
Lobdell, Effie L., Ill, 120-1, 

125 
Lombroso, Cesare, 147 
Lugaro, Ernesto, 331 
Lydston, George Frank, 182, 

185 
Lyell, Charles, 212 
Lyman, Henry M., 88, 181 

McBride, T. A., 157, 301, 304-5 
McClintock, James, 206 
McMurtrie, Henry, 218 
McNutt, Sarah J., 332 
McWilliams, Samuel Anderson, 

126-7 
Madigan, M. J., 165 
Magendie, Francois, 208 
Marie, Pierre, 332 
Marsh, Othniel Charles, 184, 

214, 216, 229, 233, 237 
Matas, R., 260 
Mayo, 260 
Merriman, H. P., 46 
Meyer, Adolf, 112 
Meynert, Theodor, 280-1 
Michels, John, 137, 156, 307 
Mills, Charles K., 203, 253, 333 
Milne-Edwards, 208 
Milroy, William F., 333 
Mitchell, John K., 332 
Mitchell, Silas Weir, 146, 157, 

270, 313, 332 
Montgomery, Edmund, 138- 

140, 326 
Moore, Edward Mott, 255 



338 



Index of Scientists 



Morgan, John, 50, 265 
Morton, Thomas G., 332 
Morton, William J., 131-2, 168 
Moyer, Harold N., 182 
Mumford, James Gregory, 256 
Muller, Johannes, 208 
Murphy, John B., 149, 185 

Nott, Josiah Clark, 18, 152,278 
Noguchi, H., 333 

Ordronaux, John, 193 

Osborn, Henry Fairfield, 185, 

214 
Osier, William, 201, 247 
Oswald, Felix L., 138 
Owen, Richard, 139, 207-8, 223, 



Page, Herbert W., 173, 180 

Paoli, 88, 186 

Park, Roswell, 36, 152, 254- 

263, 321 
Parkes, Charles Theodore, 256-7 
Parkinson, James, 48 
Patrick, Hugh T., 185 
Pepper, William, 203, 231, 240- 

254, 313, 316 
Physick, Philip Syng, 50, 210 
Pinel, Philippe, 74, 118 
Pitcher, Zina, 41 
Powell, J. W., 234 
Pusey, William Allen, 185 
Putnam, J. J., 174, 333 
Pyle, Walter L., 181 

Quine, William E., 36, 81, 128 

Ray, Isaac, 100, 193, 332 

Rea, Robert Laughlin, 37-9, 



Reade, Winwood, 197 
Reese, John James, 193 
Register, Edward C, 191 
Reil, Johann Christian, 75 
Richardson, Maurice H., 260 
Ridlon, John, 185 
Robinson, Byron, 126, 256 
Rockwell, A. D., 155 
Rokitansky, Carl, 30, 40 
Roler, E. O. F., 43 
Roosa, D. B. S., J., 270-1 
Romberg, Moritz H., 332 
Rush, Benjamin, 18, 50, 332 

Sachs, Bernard, 168 
Sachs, Theodore B., 124 
Santee, Harris E., 126 
Schmidt, H. D., 152-4, 252 
Schneider, Albert, 126 
Seguin, Edouard, 51 
Seguin, E. C, 152, 253, 316 
Semmelweis, Ignaz Philipp, 30, 

327, 329 
Senn, Nicholas, 185 
Servetus, Michael, 265 
Shippen, Jr., William, 210, 265 
Sims, J. Marion, 42, 51, 278 
Skoda, Josef, 30 

Smith, Nathan, 47 
Smith, Theobald, 273 
Spencer, Herbert, 170, 287 
Spitzka, Edward Anthony, 287, 

316 
Spitzka, Edward Charles, 112, 
152, 155, 157, 174, 195, 231, 
253, 268, 279-316, 322, 324, 

328, 331-2 

Spray, John Campbell, 59-62 
Starr, M. A., 332 
Swammerdam, Jan, 206 



Index of Scientists 



339 



Tait, Lawson, 43 
Talbot, Eugene S., 185 
Thacher, James, 50 
Tilney, F., 333 
Tonnini, Silvio, 166 
Tulpius, Nicholas, 39 

Van Buren, W. H., 264-5 

Walton, G. L., 174 
Ward, Lester F., 138 
Waterhouse, Benjamin, 50 
Waugh, William Francis, 128, 

183-5 
Welch, W. H., 260 



White, W. A., 333 

Wiedersheim, 163 

Wilder, Burt Green, 146, 157, 

219, 271-80, 287, 299, 301, 

333 
Wilson, James Cornelius, 252 
Wistar, Caspar, 210 
Wood, Casey A., 185 
Wood, George B., 208 
Wood, Horatio C, 130, 190-1, 

203 
Wyeth, John A., 316 
Wyman, Jeffries, 210, 272 

Zoethout, William D., 126 









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